Giving feedback

You should make sure your reviews are unsurprising, fair, and motivating.

Make the feedback unsurprising.

What if you’re delivering reviews right now, and this will be the first time your reports are hearing this particular feedback?

First, I need you to commit to not letting this happen again.

Then:

1. Acknowledge with your report that this is the first time you’re bringing it up.
2. Commit to partnering with them on new solutions or changes to address the feedback.
3. Do not let the brand-new feedback weigh heavily in their rating. If the contents of your report’s review are surprising to them, then that’s (likely) on you as their manager.

Make the feedback fair.

We’re optimizing for making sure your report’s review is both digestible and actionable. To do this, we need to keep their prefrontal cortex—the rational, logical part of the brain—online.

If there’s even a hint that someone isn’t being treated fairly and equitably, the good old fight or flight mode can wake up and tell our prefrontal cortex to go on standby. When this happens, the person in fight-or-flight mode can’t really hear or digest what’s being said.

Since you’ve already removed any feedback that has to do with your feelings, and you’ve documented your fact-based observations rather than assumptions or judgments about their behavior, you’re on the right track!

Make the feedback motivating.

“What are you optimizing for?” is a great coaching question that works in so many different contexts: helping someone identify what they want in a new job, unpick what’s bugging them about a work conflict, weigh difficult tradeoffs, etc.

And this question DEFINITELY comes in handy when you’re preparing to give feedback!

I recommend framing the biggest behavior change you’d like to see from your direct report in terms of what they are currently optimizing for. Some examples:

• I know you’ve been considering what you need to do to get promoted to the next level. Gathering more stakeholder feedback and incorporating it along the way for each project would demonstrate the kind of strategic thinking that’s required at the next level.
• I know you’re interested in developing depth in one area, rather than breadth. Leading this thorny project would definitely require you to intricately understand others’ points of view on this area of the stack, and give you an opportunity to go really deep on it, too.