Leaning into difficult conversations and giving feedback
One of the most difficult tasks for most leaders is leaning into difficult conversations and giving feedback. I’m using these interchangeably as to me the approach to either is one and the same. Whether you have to have those conversations in your personal life or at work, the way to approach them is similar. Do you typically dread performance review time, or shy away from sharing how you feel about something? I hope these tips help you in leaning in.
In the ‘old’ days, people talked about a sandwich model of feedback. Start and end with the positives (the bread) and sandwich the constructive feedback in the middle (the meat), so it wouldn’t come out so harshly. While it helped for some, probably in helping the feedback giver feel better, I hardly believe that it told the message for the receiver in a way that allowed them to understand it clearly and grow.
Giving feedback is part mindset.
Going by Brene Brown’s excellent mantra of “Clear is Kind”, in order to get ready to give constructive feedback, adopting the mindset that the reason you are doing so is to help someone grow, will allow for that conversation to be easier on you, and more actionable and respectful on the receiver.
Building the relationship with the individuals in your team, or other individuals, and having built trust, also allows for that difficult conversation to be easier. Think of it as a relationship tank, the more you put in, the easier it is when you have to have a difficult conversation. You have built trust in that tank, and that person knows that you have their best interest at heart.
Be prepared to have that conversation with what you want to get out of it, what you want your message to be, and how will you start this discussion. Have a few sentences that you can start the conversation with, Brene Brown calls these Rumble Starters, and pair them with curiosity. My favorites go like this “I’m curious about…” and “the story I make up about this is….”.
Use a coaching approach and ask open-ended questions. Not only will this change the dynamic of the conversation, it will also leave the receiver empowered to own their own development. I think giving feedback IS coaching.
One missing item in the typical discussions about feedback is that it tends to only focus on the past, and on things that the person has done ‘wrong’. The first flaw with that is that it assumes that we are the holders of truth, the all-powerful know-it-alls, which we are not! The second flaw is that it focuses on the negative behavior, because what someone has done wrong is easier to spot than when they do something right. The third flaw in this is that it sets the conversation in a way that the receiver can take this very personally. In this way, feedback can be limited and static, instead of being dynamic and expansive, and ultimately not achieve the results you are looking for. Marshall Goldsmith uses a model called Feedforward.
Focus on the behaviors the employee wants to change, the ones you want to see changed in the future and discuss ways in which they can achieve that behavior change and how you can support that. This method is more positively focused on the future and allows for the fact that you can’t change the past, but you can change the future. If you focus on what you do wrong, you will keep doing it, like a racecar driver who is told to focus on the road and not the wall, or they will hit that wall.
“Where you focus goes, your energy flows”.
Technique: SBI Model + F
Developed by the Center for Creative Leadership, the SBI™ feedback tool outlines a simple structure that you can use to deliver effective on-the-spot feedback . SBI™ stands for:
Situation: you outline the situation you're referring to, so that the context is clear and specific.
Behavior: you discuss the precise behavior that you want to address.
Impact: finally, you highlight the impact of the person's behavior on you, the team and the organization.
To that model, I add F for Follow-Up. Feedback/feedforward should not be a one and done exercise, it requires follow up. The follow up is really where the behavior change gets anchored, or adjusted, and where the accountability and empowerment happens. As a side benefit, the follow up allows for the partnership and the relationship to flourish through open conversation and transparency.
Leaning into difficult conversations, giving feedback, is part mindset part technique. It can be something that is looked forward to rather than dreaded.