How to Give Better Feedback at Work | Goop

Here are four key steps for critical feedback conversations. (I cover more in my book Let’s Talk.)

1. Ask, “How do you think that went?”

First, be sure to ask the other person how they think something went. Find out their perspective before you start talking.

You might ask:

– How do you think that went?
– Where do you see yourself making progress?
– What went well? What would you do differently?

If they articulate that there was a problem, it’s so much easier to have a feedback conversation. Because they brought it up, you don’t have to—and it lets you know how self-aware they are. It sets up the foundation that this is a dialogue rather than one-sided criticism. There’s also research that shows that if a manager asks for an employee’s perspective on a problem first, that employee is more likely to think that the manager is good at giving feedback.

2. Say your good intentions out loud

The second important thing to do is to say your good intentions out loud. That’s something like, “I really want to help you write a good report here.” Or more generically: “I want the best for you. I want to see you succeed. I see you working so hard, and I want that to pay off.”

Research by Leslie John at Harvard Business School shows that stating those good intentions out loud, as awkward and artificial as it might feel, changes the mindset of the person who’s getting bad news or thinks they don’t want to hear feedback.

3. Say something specific and positive

There’s research—again by Leslie John at Harvard Business School—showing that if you start with a genuine, specific piece of praise about someone’s work, they pay more attention when you get to the critical thing. It shows that you’re paying attention to their effort and accomplishments, so the critical feedback feels like it’s coming from that same positive attention, too. It helps them hear it.

It can’t just be a generic feedback sandwich, like “Kelly, you look so nice today. Here’s this problem.” It needs to be very specific and about their work. Like: “Kelly, in that report that you submitted this morning, I was really impressed by how thorough you were in your research. I wasn’t even familiar with those websites. You did such a great job there. But I had this one concern. I noticed…” If you do that, they feel seen and validated as you move into your specific concern.

4. Framing with “I noticed”

When you’re describing something that concerns you, frame it as “I noticed ____ happened” as opposed to “You did ____.” That simple reframing is less likely to agitate the other person’s defenses, and it’s one of the few specific language changes I suggest memorizing.

Let’s say we’re talking about someone’s presentation. Saying, “You went over by thirty minutes” feels harsh, and it might shut that person down. Instead, try “I noticed your presentation went long.” It gives the other person an opportunity to acknowledge, “Oh yes, it did. It went so long. I went thirty minutes over.” From there, you can talk about, okay, so what happened? And now you can brainstorm together to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

We can apply the same format to William, who might be perceived as stubborn. Here, we want to avoid saying, “William, you’re a little stubborn.” Instead, try making it specific to whatever happened and express that you’re on their side. We could say, “I noticed you felt strongly about this point. I’m concerned that people are going to see you as stubborn. And I don’t want them to see you that way. Can we talk about that?” Now William can get into, “Well, wait, why would they see me as stubborn?” You can help the person think about future situations and how they could come across as more open-minded—or whatever the desired quality might be.