How to Give Direct Feedback: A Real-World Example

I've talked a lot about how to ask for feedback, and based on what you amazing readers have shared with me, it's a popular topic! So today I decided I would share a bit more about how to give great feedback.

?? Tip of the Day

Direct feedback is kind feedback — even if it's hard for you to share and for the other person to hear. This doesn't mean you should give feedback without a filter, but it does mean it's time to stop beating around the bush.

I recently put this into practice. My colleague was missing agreed upon deadlines without giving me a heads up (a major eroder of trust for me), and I was wasting my time continuously checking in to make sure we "were still on schedule."

I had given this person feedback about this before in a respectful (and what I thought was direct enough) way. I shared how missed deadlines were affecting my ability to move forward on my own work. Was there too much work on this person's plate (I knew they were going through some personal issues at home)? If so, no problem, we could loop in their manager to help delegate some work.

There was no need for that, they said. They'd have what I needed the next day.

I thought everything was resolved when I received it, but then the issue repeated itself with another project. ??

I decided to take an even more direct approach. Below is what I sent:

I wanted to run something by you. It would be great moving forward if you are able to proactively share when agreed upon deadlines shift. I know you have a lot of priorities on your plate so I don’t see any issues with deadlines shifting a day or two, although right now with the way things have been going, I’m spending time to check in and continue following up and I’m sure it probably feels like I’m nagging you as well which I don’t want to be doing. I think taking a more proactive approach on deadline changes would benefit both of our teams and support our value of “trusting teamwork” that work will get done when we say it will. Let me know what you think.

This is what I think worked well:

? I made my feedback collaborative by getting this person's thoughts on the matter. It wasn't me telling them what to do.

? I showed empathy by acknowledging they were busy and showed I was flexible on deadlines.

? I shared what the problem was for me, and also acknowledged the effect my checking in likely had on this person.

? I tied back my feedback to a company value, which coincidentally is top of mind as we've been talking a lot about values recently.

Want to know how my colleague replied? You'll find it in next week's newsletter. :)

Do you have tips to share on giving direct feedback? Or thoughts on how I framed my feedback? Even better, are you open to sharing something you've used before? Let me know in the comments!

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