Do Feedback Better: 3 Books To Help
You can't go past Radical Candor by Kim Scott. Can you be both caring and challenging? can you offer empathy while still being constructive to help someone grow? This is Scott's core premise.
Kim Scott warns against two common pitfalls in communication: Ruinous Empathy, where you care personally but fail to challenge directly (leading to unclear or unhelpful feedback), and Obnoxious Aggression, where you challenge directly but without care (leading to harsh and demotivating feedback). Radical Candor strikes a balance, ensuring feedback is both constructive and delivered with respect.
She includes all the usual helpful tips: It emphasises the importance of being clear and specific in your feedback, doing it promptly, and being open to receiving feedback yourself.
Georgia Murch (GAICD) is a spunky ball of high octane energy with a no-nonsense approach to being real with people. Her book is a delightful and practical read with the following core points:
Shift the Focus to Growth:Murch emphasises that feedback should be about growth and improvement rather than criticism. She argues that the purpose of feedback is to help individuals and teams develop their skills and capabilities. By framing feedback in terms of how it can help someone grow, the process becomes more positive and productive.
Create a Feedback Culture: Murch advocates for building a culture where feedback is normalised and expected. She suggests that feedback should be part of the daily routine, not just something that happens during formal reviews. In a feedback-rich culture, everyone—from leaders to team members—feels comfortable giving and receiving feedback because it’s seen as a tool for collective success rather than personal attack.
Focus on the Right Intentions: According to Murch, the intention behind giving feedback is crucial. Feedback should come from a place of care and a genuine desire to help the other person improve. She warns against giving feedback when emotions are high or when the intention is to hurt or punish. Instead, she encourages thoughtful and well-intentioned feedback that is aimed at helping the recipient achieve better results.
Murch's approach is all about making feedback a positive and constructive experience, one that encourages continuous learning and development for both individuals and teams.
Hot off the presses this year, Sue Anderson 's book is a delight. A good portion of the book explores why we have challenging relationships with feedback, and how we can move gently away from these experiences for a new attitude and approach.
She shares different types of feedback: acknowledgment, guidance, evaluation, along with really useful practical tips and language examples to deploy.
One of the best parts of the book is about changing our beliefs about feedback, and our ourselves. This is a key aspect many ignore: how do we deal with feedback from an emotional and esteem point of view.
A valuable addition to the canon around feedback.
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Your Book Club Questions:
What is our/your relationship like with feedback?
How often do you give/receive feedback?
What frameworks do you/we use for giving feedback?
Do we have a feedback culture? Why/why not?
How might we create a feedback culture?
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About Zo? Routh
Founder of canwetalk.co Expert in creating teams and organisations that 'work as one', designing feedback cultures and leadership offsites. Best selling Author. Speaker. Facilitator.
6 个月I love how you write Zoe Routh... "a spunky ball of high octane energy with a no-nonsense approach to being real with people". How real yourself are you? Happy to be on shelf with these powerful women too. Thanks for the attribution. You're a generous soul x