By Amy Johnson (LDS 406)

Information contained in this article is not original and is from numerous sources, including a version of this article that appeared in the March–April 2019 issue (pp. 92–101) of Harvard Business Review. 

Feedback is defined as reactions to a product or a person’s performance of a task that is used as a basis for improvement. The most effective way to give people feedback is one of the hottest topics in human capital management today. The common presumption is that feedback is always useful. A trend toward feedback that subjects workers to intense and awkward real-time 360s, radical candor, and unvarnished and pervasive transparency have led to the belief that this is the way to improve performance.  

According to an article in the Harvard Business Reivew (March-April 2019) “Leaders have quite a few things that demand their attention and force them to act. Many of them are problems. If you see something go off the rails, the instinct will kick in to stop everything to tell someone what they did wrong and what they need to do to fix it. This instinct is by no means misguided: If your team member screws something up, you have to deal with it. But remember that when you do, you’re merely remediating—and that remediating not only inhibits learning but also gets you no closer to excellent performance.” 

We provide feedback from three accepted misconceptions that are commonly accept as truths:  

1. The first belief is that other people are more aware than you are of your weaknesses, and that the best way to help you is for them to show you what you cannot see for yourself. It is up to your colleagues to tell you as plainly as possible where you stand. If they don’t, you will never know. 
2. The second belief is that the process of learning is like filling up an empty vessel: You lack certain abilities you need to acquire, so your colleagues should teach them to you. You need feedback to develop the skills you’re missing. 
3. The third belief is that great performance is universal, analyzable, and describable, and that once defined, it can be transferred from one person to another, regardless of who each individual is. With feedback you can understand where you fall short and strive to remedy your shortcomings. 

Instead, do the following when people ask you for feedback: 

1. Start with the present. If a team member approaches you with a problem, rather than tackling the problem head-on, ask your colleague to tell you three things that are working for him or her right now. These things might be related to the situation or entirely separate. They might be significant or trivial. Just asking the question primes your colleague with oxytocin—which is sometimes called the “love drug,” but for this situation is better thought of as the “creativity drug.” Getting someone to think about specific things that are going well alters brain chemistry so that he or she can be open to new solutions and new ways of thinking or acting. 
2. Go to the past. Ask your colleague, “When you had a problem like this in the past, what did you do that worked?” Much of our life happens in patterns, so it’s highly likely that he or she has encountered this problem at least a few times before. On one of those occasions your colleague will almost certainly have found some way forward, some action or insight or connection that enabled him or her to move out of the mess. Prompt your colleague to think about that and see in his or her mind’s eye what happened next. 
3. Turn to the future. If you see somebody doing something that really works, stop them and dissect it. Ask your colleague, “What do you already know you need to do? What do you already know works in this situation?” Offer up one or two of your own experiences to see if they might clarify the situation. But operate under the assumption that your colleague already knows the solution—you’re just helping him or her recognize it. 

The emphasis here should not be on why—“Why didn’t that work?” or “Why do you think you should do that?” Instead, focus on the what—“What do you actually want to have happen?” or “What are a couple of actions you could take right now?” These sorts of questions yield concrete answers that will help your colleagues find actual solutions in the near-term future. 

Feedback is about telling people what we think of their performance and how they should improve it. At its best, feedback encourages people to contribute their own unique and growing talents to a common good. At its worst, it’s toxic, self-centered; it is based on our own expertise, and what we are sure is our colleagues’ “in-expertise.” Simply telling people what we think of their performance doesn’t help them thrive and excel.