“Well done!” “Err, good job.” “It’s sufficient.” For both the giver and receiver, feedback can feel daunting. As a manager, you face quite a few challenges: you don’t want to be so slight-handed that the team member doesn’t know what to improve or how, but you also don’t want to come across as cold and demotivate the person, or equally as undesirable, causing an argument leading nowhere.
What’s frustrating about feedback is that on one hand, it can crash your team member’s confidence and demotivate them. On the other hand, it can improve your team members’ performance dramatically. These two options demonstrate how powerful this tool is, and how important it is to master it.
Thankfully, there’s a scheme – and an attitude – that allows us to get the most out of feedback, helping us navigate a conversation so no one feels defensive. If you’re wondering what this conversation looks like, what you can do to prepare yourself for this talk, the wrong way to raise an issue, and more, you’re in for a treat this week as we answer all that and more.
