Feedback that doesn’t FLOP

Leaders talk about how to effectively deliver assessments to teams

iving efficient feedback to your team, whether positive or negative, can be a challenge for any business leader, as she has to find the best way to frame and deliver the information to ensure it is acted upon, while also keeping it impersonal and professional.

If successful, effective feedback can motivate the team to learn from its mistakes

and do a better job, as well as to become stronger and more united.

With enough practice, leaders can learn how to deliver feedback with optimal results. The following entrepreneurs offer their advice on the steps a manager should take when providing assessments to their employees and explain why these steps are crucial to ensuring honest, transparent communication and effective results.

Talk about issues, not people

Arguably one of the most important aspects of providing feedback is trying to avoid assigning blame because that can easily alienate your employees instead of helping them improve.

Jared Atchison, co-founder of WPForms, says managers should focus on the issues at hand instead of targeting specific employees and pinning blame on one or two people.

“Everyone works together to collectively bring your business where it should be, so one person shouldn’t take all the blame for everyone’s shortcomings.”

Be specific

“If you want to give feedback to your team that they can actually use to grow, then you need to be specific,” says OptinMonster president and co-founder Thomas Griffin, underlining the importance of highlighting exactly what doesn’t work to avoid confusion.

“For example, you can’t just say, ‘Your work needs to improve.’ You need to give specific examples of what they need to improve and how they can improve it,” Griffin explains. Providing specific critiques will allow your team to quickly identify the issue and easily improve its work.

Ask what the team found most challenging

A great way of both giving and receiving feedback is to start by asking employees what they found to be the most challenging part of a task or project, says Nicole Munoz, founder of Nicole Munoz Consulting, Inc. She believes it’s important for a manager to try to get a little more information out of his team in order to improve company performance.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, and most projects aren’t either. Find out what was challenging and then discuss what is good and what could be improved,” Munoz recommends. “You’ll have a clear path and know what is difficult.”

Keep it informal

“One could write books on how best to provide feedback to your teams,” says FE International CEO Ismael Wrixen, adding that one of the most important things to keep in mind is that, one way or another, managers provide their team with feedback on a constant basis, not only during performance reviews or at monthly staff meetings.

“The way one responds to emails, approves or modifies project plans or even socializes with employees can give employees an impression of how they are performing.”

While this kind of unconscious feedback should be carefully monitored, it’s a good idea to retain the informal nature of it, Wrixen says. Not everything must be rigid and formal, and employees likely will respond positively to the more relaxed nature of certain forms of communication.

Ask how you can help

When giving feedback, leaders should also make it clear that they are available to their teams to offer guidance or support should it be needed. SeedProd LLC founder John Turner has turned this into a habit and now asks his employees how he can help at the end of every critique session.

“Their requests range from help with a specific topic to asking if they can learn from another department so they can better understand the company. These requests usually have positive results when we have our next feedback session,” Turner says.

Start with the good

Many business leaders, including Uassist.ME co-founder Alfredo Atanacio, think that serving up criticism may be easier if preceded by a positive remark

“People enjoy compliments, especially about their work and when coming from management,” Atanacio says. “Also, if you have something negative to say or want to discuss things that may be improved, starting with a compliment will smooth the way so that the team will take it well.”

Focus on outcomes, not weaknesses

Finally, Interact Marketing founder and CEO Joe Beccalori finds that the most effective strategy for delivering feedback is to instead focus on guiding the team toward a certain destination, helping the members to improve.

“Rather than focusing on perceived weaknesses, engage teams to focus on how to problem-solve and achieve a particular outcome, and let them own it, mistakes and all, along the way,” Beccalori advises. “The best leaders know how to guide, steer and influence.”

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