Have you ever watched the water running in a creek?
The water doesn’t resist, or contort itself, or brace for impact. It just flows. It bounces off this rock and slips by that one. It pools and swirls then trundles downstream, wherever the slope goes. There’s an ease to this flow.
Think about the last time you paused to provide feedback to a team member. Were you nervous about how they would take it? Did you brace for their response? Did you feel pressure to use the right words so they wouldn’t be offended?
One of the keys to giving feedback well is to be sincere, plainspoken, and unattached to getting a specific reaction.
This means calmly sharing what you noticed and the impact of it. Share it candidly, lightly, with a spirit of “it’s not a big deal“. No one is in trouble here. Instead of bringing tension, build-up and expectations, just share it. Don’t repeat it 3 times to make sure you’re understood. Don’t smother it with preambles, caveats and justifications. Just share it: “Here’s something I noticed from the presentation this morning…”
This is important because feedback is most effective when it’s a common part of an everyday habit, not a special event that only occurs when something is seriously wrong.
This principle (make feedback calm & commonplace) is Key #4 in the upcoming virtual workshop The Fundamentals of Giving Feedback.
In this 1-hour training we’ll examine these 4 Keys for giving feedback. We’ll also review 3 Formulas you can customize to many situations. And we’ll ground it all in why this is important and what’s at stake. Click here for details and registration.
