An Approach to Effective Feedback

It seems that everyone agrees that good feedback is important to improve performance as an individual and collectively as an organization. However, according to research, despite improving performance on average, feedback negatively impacts performance more than 30% of the time. My guess is, this is properly due to the quality of the feedback being given. When feedback is unstructured, unprecise and backward-looking, it is more likely to discourage than to drive improved performance. Consequently, it is critical for you as a finance business partner to be considerate about the way you provide feedback to others.

Cognitive Psychologist, LeeAnn Renninger, presents a simple approach to structure feedback in her short TED video. According to her research, great feedback givers follow four steps.

1. The micro yes

Start by asking a short and important question like “do you have five minutes to talk about how that meeting went?”. This does two things. First, it creates pacing by letting the receiver know that that feedback is coming. Secondly, it creates a moment of buy-in by giving the receiver the option to say yes/no. People are less likely to show a classical threat response (fight, flight, freeze) when you start your feedback this way.

2. The data point

Secondly, convey specifically what you saw or experienced. Be objective and specific by removing blur words, i.e. words that might mean different things to different people. Make it actionable by being clear in terms of what you want the other party to increase/decrease in the future.

3. The impact statement

Continue to outline how the data point impacted you or others around you, i.e. “when you did A it led to B”. By outlining this correlation between action and impact, you create a purpose and meaning to the feedback. In other words, it gives context to the feedback by explaining why it makes sense to change or continue a certain behavior.

4. The commitment question

Wrap up with a question like “how do you see it?”, “what do you think we should do?” or “how do you think we can avoid this in the future?”. This moves the encounter from being a monologue (one-directional advocacy) to a joint problem-solving session. When the feedback receiver proposes a solution, it establishes ownership and commitment rather than just compliance. Also, people are much more likely to follow up on something they themselves where part of formulating compared to something they were ordered to do.

Final remarks

By following these steps, you should be able to provide clear feedback that is helpful rather than confusing and demotivating to the receiver.

Other similar feedback frameworks include TIPS and SOI models.

Bonus insight: 4 feedback principles

Whenever you provide feedback, make it caring, concrete, constructive and curious.

• Concrete: Refer to concrete, observable situations, and avoid subjective terms that can be interpreted differently by different people.
• Caring: Convey your feedback to show that you have the receiver’s best interest in mind, and that you honestly want him/her to succeed.
• Constructive: Offer alternatives to what you experienced to make the dialogue solution oriented. Focus on the future rather than dwelling in the past, i.e. “how can we do better tomorrow?”.
• Curious: Do not expect to know the drivers for all behaviors and choices made by the receiver. Be curious and strive to fully understand their motivation for acting in the way they did.

For more tips and tricks, have a look at my other articles.