Giving & Receiving Feedback Effectively

You have to give constructive criticism to a member of your team. How are you going to do it?

Giving feedback is hard. And that’s largely because receiving feedback is hard. How can you be firm enough to get the results you need when offering constructive criticism but kind enough to not end up hurting someone’s feelings? How can you motivate the people around you to do better when you first have to tell them that they’re not doing as well as you want them to be? The world of feedback is a tricky one, but it’s one we must enter into if we want to grow and succeed and if we want others to do the same. In this post, we’ll look at what makes giving and receiving feedback challenging and how we can improve in both areas in order to level up our effective communication.

Giving Feedback Effectively

I’ll let you in on a little secret: most of the work of giving good feedback happens before you’re actually giving it. And I’ll explain what I mean by that. To effectively offer high quality feedback, first you have to know people and people have to know you.

You Have to Know People

Giving feedback to friends and family may be particularly prickly, but at least you know who you’re talking to. You already have a good idea of the communication style that will be most effective with your sibling, your best friend, or your child because you have shared history. In a team setting in your work, on the other hand, you don’t have anywhere near as much context for the people you’re collaborating with. If you have to offer constructive criticism to a member of your team, how do you know how to deliver it in a way that they will receive well? Some people are raised by parents that offer a lot of encouragement and affirmation. That person might feel discouraged if you only discuss areas that need improvement and include no affirmation that they are doing well in their other responsibilities. Another person may come from a competitive household that was more focused on results than on feelings. This person may wonder why you’re wasting time talking about what they’re already doing well when they want to know what they’re doing wrong and how they can fix it. People have so many different styles of communication, so before you give feedback, consider who you’re giving feedback to. How can you effectively reach them specifically with what you say?

People Have to Know You

There’s another reason why I said that the work of giving good feedback is largely done beforehand. No matter what you say or how you say it, sometimes people will not receive your feedback well. Whoever’s fault it may be, there’s something that will help you out a ton when this inevitably happens sometimes — if people know that you mean well. You may be awkward or ramble or be too blunt when you deliver feedback to someone, but if they already know that you genuinely care about them and their success, they can still receive it. If a member of your team knows that you’re trying to help them by offering feedback on areas where they can improve, then they’re a lot less likely to jump to conclusions or take things too personally. Think about it from the other side — if someone who you knew didn’t like you very much tried to tell you how you should be doing better at your job, would you appreciate that? Even if they had a point, probably not. Their message — justified or not — wouldn’t make it through to you because you would already be suspicious of their motives. That’s ineffective communication at its finest. But if, on the other hand, a leader or mentor who had earned your respect and loyalty offered you some words of constructive criticism, you would be a lot more likely to receive that feedback, even if it still stung a little. So, if you’re already doing the work of showing your team or the people around you that you are supporting them and truly hoping for their success, then your task will be much easier when it comes time to give feedback.

Receiving Feedback Effectively

Like I said earlier in the post, part of why giving feedback is so hard is the fact that we know that receiving feedback is hard. So now that we’ve thought about how we can be more effective in giving feedback well, we need to take a moment to also consider how to be more effective in receiving feedback well. I have two tips for you on this side of things, and they’re both about your mindset.

Make Feedback Your Friend

The simple truth is that you’re much more likely to succeed in life if you’re more concerned with how you can do better as you move forward than you are with whether or not you’re doing well right now. Certainly you should want to be doing your best where you are here and now, but if you’re so worried about doing well that you’re not looking to how you can improve and grow, then negative feedback will cut you to your core. If you can get into the mindset of asking, “How can I improve? Where do I need to grow,” then feedback will become your best friend. Try not to see critical feedback as a label of failure, but instead try to see it as what it is — insight into how you can reach your potential.

See It From the Other Side

In the midst of trying to respond well to getting feedback from a superior, team member, or friend, remember how hard it can be to give feedback and then respond as you wish people would when you’re the one who has to deliver the critiques. In the world of feedback, no matter what side of it you’re on, we can all help each other communicate more effectively by remembering the golden rule and treating each other as we want to be treated. Don’t judge motives or project your own insecurities onto the person giving you feedback, but instead, hear what they’re actually saying and believe that they mean it.

Navigating giving and receiving feedback can be like picking your way through a minefield, but we can’t become truly effective communicators if we allow this area to remain a blindspot. So know people, make sure they know you, make feedback your friend, and always try to see it from the other side. You’ve got this!