Thread by @businessbarista

People suck at giving feedback.

It's not a natural human behavior and we fail to practice and perfect it.

But it's a must have if you want to be a great manager or build a great business.

My thoughts on feedback...

Ever since my first job in Finance, I've been obsessed with the value of feedback.

That’s because, I literally never received it.

Just once, at the six month mark of my job, my manager sat me down for feedback.

And all he said was "it's too soon to know how you're doing."

Other than that....nothing.

From then on, it was my mission to become great at giving feedback.

And i've come to think about feedback a lot like teaching:

• It's invaluable
• Trust is a must
• Conversation > Lecture
• Know your audience
• Specificity is key

In school, my teachers taught me principles and pushed me through tests.

In life, my parents taught me principles of a valued life by reinforcing good & correcting bad.

Work should be no different.

Your manager should be your best teacher guiding you through work.

Time to listen up, managers.

Step 1 in giving good feedback is about priming yourself to give good feedback.

And it starts by building trust.

To give good feedback, your employee must be good at receiving feedback.

That is WAY more likely when they trust you.

One of the best ways to build trust is to give praise often & authentically.

This enables you to give direct feedback without compliment sandwiches.

The employee will already know you appreciate the work they do and the person they are without sugar-coating.

Another way to prime a good feedback conversation is good expectation setting.

Feedback is a really personal experience.

Not everyone likes receiving it unprompted.

Respect peoples' process for processing feedback by asking them for permission.

Asking for permission does two things:

1) The employee is given a say in the matter. They have agency to accept or reject feedback.

2) The employee is able to prepare mentally to receive feedback. They'll appreciate you as the manager for acting empathetically.

BONUS: once an employee says yes, I'd consider asking them if there's a specific way they'd like to receive feedback.

Every employee has a different way of processing info.

Some people like straight shooting. Others personalize feedback and require finesse.

Step 1 complete.

Now it's time to give kick-ass feedback.

I have a simple framework for crushing feedback convos.

OERA.

Observation.
Effect.
Recommendation.
Ask.

Let's use an example.

Let's say I was in a meeting where a direct report presented a new product idea to several senior leaders.

And let's say the goal of the meeting was to get buy-in and green light the product.

My feedback post-meeting will start with OBSERVATION.

Feedback is all about objectivity & specificity.

Leave opinions at the door & share exactly what happened.

Using the example: "I noticed half-way through the presentation, senior leaders were disengaged. They were typing on slack and doing everything but paying attention."

If you notice, I don't judge why leaders were disengaged.

That enables me to share the EFFECT of what I observed.

Using the example: "Bc leaders were disengaged, it's possible they left the presentation with many questions & lack buy-in we need to move the product forward."

By this point, I haven't judged my direct report's abilities/actions.

They understand how things went down & what the possible impact was.

Now, I offer a RECOMMENDATION for creating a different effect next time around.

My recommendation must be specific & actionable.

This brings us to the last part of high-powered feedback.

You provided a factual observation.

You shared potential effects based on what happened.

And you've provided an actionable recommendation to change the effects in the future.

The last step is ASKING.

You primed the conversation by asking for thoughts.

Now you end it by asking for thoughts.

Ask your employee what they think about the feedback you gave.

This changes things from a monologue to a dialogue & it shows that you're open to receiving—not just giving—feedback.

Oh...one last recommendation.

Document the feedback you give and share it after your conversation.

Two benefits:

1) Your employee doesn't feel obligated to voraciously take notes
2) You have a paper trail to keep track of the employee's progress

And that's my playbook for giving high-powered feedback!

If you want my full thoughts on giving feedback, listen to my recent @FoundersPod episode:

On Apple: apple.co/3vxl4Bj

On Spotify: spoti.fi/3vlKHVi

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twitter.com/businessbarista