The Art of Giving Feedback

Giving feedback is part of being human. We all have opinions. We all have relationships with other people. Put the two together and we spend a lot of time giving other people our opinions. It makes us feel good, it clearly benefits them, and overall it will make our relationship better, right? Yet how many times have we given feedback and had it blow up right in our face? Like everything in life, practice helps hone the skill. Let’s experiment with the art of feedback on two dimensions — 1. self-feedback which is basically the secret trait of all successful of successful product designers, and 2. feedback for others.

“If you want to change the world, start with yourself.” -Mahatma Gandhi

The Art of Self-Feedback

If you’re working on practicing a new skill, the most controlled place to start is with yourself. If you work in a corporate setting, you likely have meetings with many people. In the technology world, these people could include your manager, direct reports and peers in engineering, product or design. Think back to the last meeting you had and practice the art of self-feedback by using this question framework:

What am I proud of?
What did I do well?
What could I have done better?
What are my learnings & actions from the 3 prior questions?

Leadership can happen from a place of strength or a place of fear. Many high performers skip over all the things that we excel at to immediately zero into our areas of struggle so that we can fix them. Starting with questions #1 & #2 helps remind us to slow down and acknowledge what worked well. We want to reinforce and build upon these strengths. Question #3 lets us acknowledge areas of growth, the area we want to fix. And question #4 gives perspective and choice. Given all that we’ve just covered, what’s one insight, action or learning to try next time.

An example:
When I was a design leader at Facebook, my relationships with the head of engineering and product were crucial to ensure that we continue shipping high quality products that impact people’s lives. I walked out of a high stakes triage meeting with my two partners. Our product was not on-track to hit its goals this quarter and we needed to change what the team was doing. I reflected on how I did:

I’m proud that I was able to empathize and see the engineering leader’s perspective. I supported and even suggested running more design experiments in parallel to more rapidly see what would impact our goals.
I was able to remain calm and focus on the shared problem and not quirks of personalities that had side-tracked me in the past.
I could have better controlled my presence at the meeting. I should have ignored the pings on my phone to give full attention to the people in front of me.
Take-away: my long-term goal is building more trust with the engineering leader so I will continue to view things from our shared team goals and give fuller focus to the meeting in front of me.

Self-feedback can be a muscle, or an intentional moment that is taken after each critical meeting to quickly reflect and re-set the path. It doesn’t have to feel heavy like a performance review, and instead can be a quick scan of the 3 questions and one insight/action to keep trying.

For high performers, it can be challenging to acknowledge what we do well, rather than immediately dive in to fix what’s broken. This Harvard Business Review study suggests that the ideal ratio of positive to negative feedback is 5.6 to 1. Make sure to play to your strengths and acknowledge what is working in addition to making changes for growth.

The Art of Giving Feedback to Others

Posters line the walls of Facebook. This is one of my favorite messages.

Feedback is a gift is a frequent saying at Facebook. If someone else has taken the time and energy to give you some feedback, treat is as a gift. Yet as a giver of feedback, how do you ensure that your gift is well received and doesn’t inadvertently piss off the recipient?

The art of feedback breaks down into the following 4 steps.

1. Foundation of trust

First make sure that the relationship is strong. It takes time to build up shared trust so that you have an empowered relationship. This trust establishes that you are giving the feedback because you care about the person and hope that the feedback will better the relationship and your shared goals in some way.

2. Ask for permission

Ask for permission to give the feedback. Continue building the relationship by asking if the person is ready and willing to receive the feedback. Most of the time, they’ll likely say yes, however, if they say no, have the self-management to shut-up and save it for later, for a better time. One example phrasing:

Hey, I’ve been thinking about some ways that we could work better together. Here’s some things that I’ve been working on [insert specifics]. I also have feedback for you… do I have your permission to share it?

3. Be specificProvide examples and specifics to help contextualize the feedback. Stick with the facts not opinion. Talk about the impact of the action on you. One framework that I’ve been using with my 9 year old daughter for her relationships & expressing her needs with her friends is:

When you do ______ in ________ situation, it makes me feel _________.

Example: Elaine, when you laugh at my hiding place by the couch when we were playing hide-and-seek yesterday, it makes me feel like like you’re mocking me and it makes me sad & mad.

Then open up and listen to their response. Engage in the conversation & be curious about what happens next.

4. Be empathetic & experimental
You are the gift-giver of feedback, and you’re in this relationship for the long haul. Watch and see the impact of your feedback. Watch your partner to see their energy and reaction. See if your partner enjoys the experience of receiving the gift. If it is appropriate, ask them what their takeaway / learning / insight is. Be empathetic and approach the interaction with genuine curiosity of wanting to learn how to be a better gift-giver for that specific person. And keep trying. Be experimental and build that relationship for the long-term.

The Bottom Line

3 things are important for the art of giving feedback.

Start with self-feedback.
Feedback is a gift. You can learn to be a good gift-giver for each person.
Keep practicing.