Let's take a look at each one of these in turn:
Specific - Effective Feedback is specific, timely and meaningful. Instead of saying to an employee at the end of the week " You did a great job", be specific. You might say something like "This week during the presentation you gave to the Executive Team I noticed how prepared and polished your presentation was. It hit the mark in terms of being heard by the team. Their questions and body language really showed us that. In particular, I appreciated how you were able to incorporate some of the things we've been talking about and merged it with both financial figures, and images, to give it impact. Terrific work! Would you be ablet to give us a few pointers at the next team meeting as to where you were able to pull the financial data and images? "
Notice the difference. A vast difference in terms of specificity and reinforcement.
Just in Time - Many leaders wait to performance feedback time once a year to provide feedback to their employees. We should be providing regularly while it is fresh and just-in-time for people to make changes as needed.
Constructive and Positive: Feedback should be both constructive and positive. As we saw in the example above, positive feedback helps us pinpoint what we do well so that we can do it again, and perhaps pass on to the rest of the team. Notice across your team how frequently you are providing positive feedback and creating best practices.
At the same time, feedback does need to point to things that need changes as well. There are several models which point to different ways to provide this feedback - the sandwich technique which starts with something positive, then provides constructive feedback, and then something positive again. When you are providing constructive feedback stick to observable behaviors, be specific with what you saw and noticed, and also start with asking the person about what their thoughts about how they did.
Where change is needed map out together a game plan of what specific performance changes are needed, what it will look like and when you will meet again to discuss. Not this and make sure you do follow-up.
Tomorrow, we will look at three more factors of effective feedback.
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