Have you struggled to give effective feedback to your direct reports before?
I know I did several times. And I know exactly how you feel; you want to help them grow, but you are struggling to put things into words and thinking when to share it with them, holding off until the performance review, and you share, and they say if you felt it like that, why did you hold it to yourself for so long?
And they’re right. You shouldn’t. After trying several times, I found these three steps beneficial. Let me teach them to deliver effective on-the-spot feedback with ease for you.
Step #1: Deliver feedback on the spot. When you do it, you let them know how they perform in real-time. Deliver it at the first available opportunity instead of waiting until the next 1:1 or (worse) the following performance review. This will allow you and them to steer the trajectory immediately before they become a pattern. You can (and should) deliver praise before they are forgotten too. This will help to reinforce and encourage what is good.
Step #2: Use the Situation-Behavior-Impact™ model to frame your feedback. Start by describing the specific situation, then focus on the observed behaviour, and finally, explain the impact (on you, the team and the company) of that behaviour. This method helps in making feedback more objective and actionable.
Step #3: It’s all about how you say it. People don’t like to feel like their sense of self-efficacy is lowered. Sometimes that’s what it feels like to them when you give feedback. You have to start with something validating first, showing support and understanding. Then, introduce areas for improvement, inspiring growth by highlighting how they can become even more effective. People want to be inspired to change; this shows you’re coming from a place of “I want to see you succeed” instead of “You’re doing something wrong; fix it”.
Emre Guney 