The Core Skill that Most Teams Lack

Tactics for developing your feedback muscle

Ray Dalio is the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Check out this email that a junior associate sent to Ray after a meeting:

“Ray — you deserve a “D-” for your performance today … you rambled for 50 minutes … It was obvious to all of us that you did not prepare at all because there is no way you could have been that disorganized at the outset if you had prepared. We told you this prospect had been identified as a “must-win” … today was really bad … we can’t let this happen again.”

Harsh! Dalio is well-known to value feedback both up and down the org chart, so this associate was on script! Feedback is an essential ingredient to truth seeking and improvement, yet most teams fail at it. Most of us aren’t in business to simply backslap, we are here to win.

Ultra-Candor

There has been a recent trend amongst management thinkers toward ultra candid feedback. Books like ‘Radical Candor’, Ray Dalio’s ‘Principles’, and Netflix’s ‘No Rules Rules’ have trumpeted the benefits of providing ultra-candid feedback to teammates, both up and down the org chart. Dalio calls it “Radical Honesty”.

There is merit to the message. If we want to improve as individuals, teams and organizations, we need to seek truth so that we can make better decisions. And to do so, we must be able to say what we think.

However, the execution of these radically candid feedback frameworks can precipitate the opposite of our desired effect. For instance, instead of using the feedback to improve, the recipient may instead get defensive and reject otherwise well-intentioned feedback.

As a leader, teammate, spouse or parent, giving and receiving feedback is a critical skill that results in better collaboration, improved awareness, sharpened skills and all-around growth. So let’s unpack some ideas on how we can be an excellent giver and receiver of feedback:

Receiving Feedback

As a manager, leader, or even individual contributor, your team may be reluctant to give you feedback. I’ve scarcely recieved feedback in my role as a leader. Often, your team doesn’t feel it’s safe to give you feedback. They might feel that they are risking their job! So you must go the extra mile to provoke feedback and create safety.

Ask for Feedback

Let your team know that feedback is a two way street - you are going to provide them with feedback on your perception of their work and you expect them to do the same for you. Keep asking for feedback in your discussions with your team - ask ‘Is there anything you think I can improve on?’ If they say no - they must think you’re perfect, which of course is impossible. Another tactic is to ask for advice on how you can be a better manager or leader. People love to give “advice”, but are apprehensive about giving “feedback”.

Appreciate it

Feedback is a gift. When you receive this gift, thank the giver. This will encourage a feeling of safety to give you more feedback in the future, while priming the conversation for a productive exploration of the feedback.

Acknolwedge and Summarize

Remember that feedback is the giver’s perception of something we did being good or bad. We take that feedback and add our own perception to it. You need to get on the same page by summarizing your understanding of the feedback. A good prompt is -‘What I’m hearing is that you feel x’. This will make the giver feel heard and also give them an opportunity to clarify your understanding. You’d be surprised how often your interpretation is askew.

Act

As the feedback receiver, you are free to take or abstain from action on the feedback. Regardless there is always a next action - it could be investigating other people’s opinions on the subject, changing behavior in future situations, or simply stating that you don’t feel any action is warranted. In any case, clearly state the next action and then close the loop by taking action and following up with the giver.

Giving Feedback

Some people find it very hard to give constructive feedback. People just aren’t comfortable pointing out another person’s perceived shortcoming. So how to give it and give it well?

Prepare for Feedback

People tend to dislike the unexpected. You must prime the team for feedback. It should be stated explicitly, either in docs, constitutions, informal meetings that the team is encouraged and expected to provide thoughtful feedback to other team members with the objective of continuous improvement. At my company, I publish a document entitled ‘How I work’ which sets out this expectation (amongst others about how I like to work).

Choose your approach

The objective of feedback is to have the recipient understand your opinion on their work so that they can decide if and how to act on it.

Not all relationships are equal. Our approach to giving feedback should account for these differences. If you have high trust with the recipient and you know them to be eager for feedback, you can often just say whats on your mind. If you have low trust, or the person tends to react negatively to feedback, you are going to want to be more careful with your language (and you might have a bigger problem!).

Calibrate your Mindset

Many people find it uncomfortable to give feedback. We can overcome this by reframing our mindset. We aren’t criticizing, we are helping the other person by giving our perception of their behavior or work. We are doing so because we really care about helping them succeed, be happy, grow their career, helping the company or whatever the case may be. Whatever gets you in the mindset to provide this feedback.

Be on time

Feedback is like a banana, it degrades everyday that it’s not delivered. Be timely. Waiting two weeks until your one-on-one to give feedback significantly degrades its effectiveness. Give feedback when it’s fresh.

No texting

Provide material feedback in-person or on a video call. There are visual cues that you need to see in order to effectively deliver the message. Avoid slack and email if possible.

Perception is not reality

Don’t be overly confident in your assessment. Your feedback is your opinion about how you perceived the receipient’s behavior or work, acknowledge that (both when giving and receiving). You could be wrong. Acknowledge this in your language. Use phrases like ‘My feeling was…’, “My perception was…’, ‘I felt that…’ And be specific as to why you had this perception.

Action

Finish up with action items. The recipient has three actions they can take: (1) disregard the feedback, (2) investigate the feedback further or (3) accept and state how they will change behaviour in the future. If they choose (1) or (2), set a trigger for the two of you to close the loop on the action - ‘Let’s check in next month and see the progress you’ve made’.

And don’t forget to give positive feedback as well. This is just as important as improvement feedback!

In Scott’s book, she describes Steve Job’s approach which I think captures the essence of feedback well:

“You need to do it in a way that does not call into question your confidence in their abilities but leaves not too much room for interpretation… and that’s a hard thing to do…I don’t mind being wrong. And I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t really matter to me to much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing.”

- Steve Jobs

Getting good at giving and receiving feedback is an essential competency guaranteed to help your team win.

If you want to go deeper on feedback, here’s a piece from Matt Mochary (one of the top executive coaches in the world) on his approach.