I just watched two seasons of the tv show Hell's Kitchen. If you haven’t watched it, its about a world famous mad chef - Gordon Ramsay yelling at many new and upcoming chefs to meet his bar of “great cooking”. The carrot: a chance to be a head chef in one of his million dollar restaurants.

It got me thinking about the right way to giving feedback! Is yelling at people and bringing them to a point of despair the right approach? This question is important to me as I embark on this journey into a leadership role with the responsibility to bring the best in people. I have defined my mission to be: Help people reach their highest potential to achieve company’s vision for the future. For me, feedback is the very tool to achieving that. In this post, I want to explore and share with you my thoughts on feedback giving & receiving and hopefully leave you with few things to think about.

Before being prescriptive about giving feedback I want to highlight that its really important for the receiver of feedback (if that is you) to have an open mind and heart. You can give feedback to a rock on how unshapely it is but its highly unlikely its going to do anything about. You can throw and break all you want but its unlikely to change without a lot of work on your part. On the other hand if you put water in a bottle it takes the shape of the bottle. You can create beautiful pathways for it to travel and it will flow the way you direct it. As a receiver, be like water. Listen, Understand, Act. Thinking of feedback as a way to shape myself to hit new highs has changed me for the best and I still have a lot to learn.

When you are the captain of your team’s ship you better be damn good at giving and receiving feedbacks. Many a ships (aka teams) have sunk because of managers who were arrogant and stonewalled against feedbacks. I have, in my career once dodged the bullet of being managed by such a manager. Oh boy, that was a close call. Anyways, what does good feedback skill look like. There were many techniques people have talked and evangelized but at the end of the day the ultimate goal is to get through to the person receiving feedback that there are things they can do to improve and hopefuly they internalize and take meaningful action to course correct. It is also equally important to understand the power dynamics. Sure, you can give regular feedbacks to your peers but if you have’t won their respect and/or you are not in a position of power don’t expect them to change a ton. At that point, your course is clear: You MUST build respect first.

As a leader who wants to bring out the best in people possibly the worst thing you can do is not give feedback directly and in a timely manner. In the book Radical Candor, Kim Scott talks about how a simple but direct feedback impacted her so profoundly and goes on to define one of the best frameworks for feedbacks. Sure, there are different techniques like sandwiching as improvement feedback between two postive feedbacks and it has its advantages but I found it to be ineffective as it dilutes the point of the message leaving people with mixed feelings about the conversation and can leave people index more on the positive rather than kindling a sense of urgency to improve. If the intended consequence is to improve people’s potential, sandwich technique simply doesn’t cut it. Then there is SBID which I found to be more useful. Don’t get me wrong, you should always give a lot more positive feedback than improvement feedbacks in general but the technique talks about how to cut through BS and get to the point when you have to give that crucial improvement feedback.

Here is what it stands for,

  • S - Situation
  • B - Behavior
  • I - Impact
  • D - Discuss

You provide the context (situation) of the feedback, followed by the specific behavior or action that they took and the impact it had on people/project or process around them. I also found it to be very effective and important to open it to discussion right after. Its also important to get through S, B, I quickly and clearly. Practicing before delivering your feedback defintely helps. There is a critical pre requisite for effective feedback: You and your receiver are on the same page on the motivation for this feedback: to improve them. If they don’t believe that your feedback is well intentioned be prepared for one of two things: bitter aftermath or inaction. The impact also needs to be a shared understanding between both of you. If not, it can lead to a long argument/discussion on why they feel the impact is not correct. The way I love to deliver it is by following it up with “this is my observation and I definitely don’t want this to impact your career or goals”. If they still persist to disagree its totally fine. Its on you to let go and let them take the time to internalize. Be content with the fact that you have made them introspect and coming from you as a position of respect hopefully means they have taken you seriously.

There is also a quite a bit to think about for receiving feedback. If you are in the chair across your manager and/or person of respect and you are clear about the intention of the feedback just know that they have put a lot of time and energy to observe, consolidate and provide you this feedback in a timely manner. Acknowledge and appreciate the effort before everything else. Seeing them on the same team as you is crucial before you react. Listen and absorb the feedback and thank them for it. They will appreciate it. When I received feedback in the past I told them I would think and internalize it first before coming up with plan for it. Its important because you may or may not be in the best mental space after you receive feedback especially the ones to improve you.

What should you do if you don’t see the giver on the same team ?

If you don’t see them on your side then its a whole new story. If you feel that the person is trying to put you down you need to address it in a different way. Few things I have done are to talk to a mentor, a person in a different team who can give an outside perspective, and finally if all else fails talk to your skip level. Its possible they are aware of this already and will be more than happy to help you navigate the relationship. They hopefully have a vested interest in helping you succeed.

One final note: When it comes to feedback, timing is everything. If you have flagged something someone can improve on please and please give them as soon as possible. It helps them reflect on it while its still in their memory and helps them immediately course correct if they equally believe and acknowledge the feedback.

I hope I have given some nuggets of thought for you to think about either as a giver or a receiver. Above all, we are all humans who bring different skills to the table of life. Respect that fact and provide feedback with compassion.