Feedback vs Advice — Tips on giving effective feedback
Most people don’t give feedback, they give unsolicited advice
I would say that we are in a feedback crisis. It’s been a hot topic over the past 2 years for me whist trying to build a feedback culture.
We all know that feedback is important, we all want our culture to be welcoming of feedback but why haven’t more companies managed to nail it?
Over the past 2 years I’ve come to conclude that one of the root problems is the negative connotations — or baggage — that is associated with the word ‘feedback’.
More often that not feedback in organisations are only given at performance appraisals and or in ‘performance management’ situations and are poorly delivered quite often in the “bad news sandwich” style — where you start with a positive, get to the negative part you actually wanted to talk about and then finish on another positive. Please stop doing this!
Either way it’s not something we associate with positivity. It’s no wonder then that we see feedback as more criticism and a negative thing only.
It’s a common trap I see regularly where feedback is only seen as ‘constructive’ or performance focused. It’s almost like they have completely forgotten that feedback can be positive as well!
