Hack:
6 Defenses Against Violent Feedback

6 Ways Of Giving Feedback Without Demotivating

We know that people despise constructive criticism, no matter how well-intended, and we know that the traditional performance review does little to help anyone improve at their jobs. This does not mean that any type of review or feedback is bad. We need to tell our employees how they are doing and how they can improve or the company will stagnate. Fixing the gaps in employee performance is essential for a company to achieve its objectives. We cannot change the biological need to protect against criticism, but we can give feedback in ways that are more supportive and that will be better received and more useful.

One of the most widely known techniques for softening the blow of negative feedback is called the sandwich method. The idea is to sandwich criticism between two pieces of positive feedback. This may be better than just giving negative feedback, but it is not good enough. It is still a direct criticism that turns people off. Here are five techniques, which I think are better, and that I try to use every time I need to give feedback to employees. I sorted them by degree of aggressiveness. I try to start with method #1 and if it fails, proceed to #2, and so forth.

1. Look into the mirror

Nothing is more irritating to an employee than to be criticized for something the manager also does (or does not do, as the case may be). When I have the same gap that an employee has I start the discussion by talking about my own failing.

For example, I notice that in meetings Frank uses the phrase “you know” excessively. I would love for him to drop this habit so he sounds better and gets his message across more clearly. I think about my own speaking and realize I have a similar habit, so I talk to Frank about it. I tell him that I am trying to improve my own speaking and ask him to interrupt me every time I say “you know.” By doing this, I have developed a strategy for closing my own performance gap, while also helping Frank to reflect on his own errors in speaking. I do not have to criticize him directly to push him to improve.

2. Be a role model

People naturally evolve to become better at their jobs and other aspects of their lives. They do so by observing people around them, especially those they look up to, respect, and aspire to be like. As managers and bosses we should be aware that our employees look to us for how to behave at work and how to do their jobs well. When I see a gap in one of my team members, I try to expose them to learning situations where I can model better performance. For example when I notice that Mary could use some help when it comes to making presentations I might ask her to observe a couple of my presentations at meetings instead of directly criticizing her performance. It is my responsibility to create these opportunities for my team members to learn from me as I role model the skills they need.

3. Tweak their work

A typical way for a manger to critique an employee’s work might be to take a deliverable, such as a spreadsheet or presentation, and list all of the things that the employee did wrong in creating it. This is a harsh and direct way to criticize someone’s work and it is very dispiriting. Instead, what I do is tweak the project directly. I take that spreadsheet and make (at least some of) the changes I think it needs. I then send it back to the employee and describe the changes I made so that she or he can learn from them. If the changes are too numerous and I do not have time to do them all, I make a few edits and ask the employee to have a look at them and make similar changes throughout the spreadsheet. This approach, I hope, feels more like collaboration between the two of us than a criticism of my team member’s efforts.

4. Feedback by invitation

People react better to feedback if they have asked for it. How do we make people ask for it though? If a team member has a weakness that needs to be addressed, I find an opportunity to engage her in a conversation about what her own professional development goals. I always let the team member come up with her own personal development plan, rather than me prescribing areas where she needs to improve. More often than not, as part of the self-created professional development objectives, the employee would list the same development areas that I have also noticed.

Most people are quite self-aware in this way. By prompting them to recognize a development goal and to trust me with helping them achieve it, I have gained permission to provide feedback which will not come across as threatening but as supportive.

5. Passive role modeling

Sometimes I just need to step in and tell a team member that she is doing something wrong, but I still try to use role modeling instead of direct criticism. For example, Anne is emailing back and forth with a customer without resolving the issue. They are misunderstanding each other and getting frustrated. Instead of telling Anne to just pick up the phone and call the customer, I tell her about my own similar experience. I tell her that I notice the struggle she is having with a customer and that it happened to me once. I describe how I resolved the problem by calling the customer and that by picking up the phone to talk directly we were able to communicate much more clearly. I consider this passive role modeling because instead of pointing out Anne’s failing, I talk about my own, similar experience and how I resolved it.

6. Nonviolent communication

This final strategy is a last resort. When the first five techniques fail to help an employee recognize his gaps and correct them, I fall back on this strategy. It is proven to work, but it is still a form of direct criticism that I prefer to avoid. When I have to use this strategy, it is typically because I failed to use the other four techniques well enough to help my team members improve. Nonviolent communication is an effective strategy that has been developed over decades and it relies on empathy. When used for negative feedback, it takes the focus away from shortcomings of the employee and instead, appeals to her desire to please.The essence of nonviolent communication is a process using four basic statements:

• Observations. “What I observe is that you and the customer are having many emails going back and forth without the issue getting solved.”
• Feelings. “I feel you are frustrated about it, and the customer is too.”
• Needs. “I really value seeing my team members and customers communicating effectively because it resolves issues better for everyone."
• Requests. “Would you be willing to pick up the phone and call the customer? I really think you would feel better after talking to him directly.”