And why the compliment sandwich is BS.

Your job as a leader and manager boils down to three things:

• communicate goals and direction
• set expectations
• give feedback

I’m sure you do a lot of other stuff in the day, and it feels like you’re in meetings back-to-back, but most everything you do should somehow fall into each of these categories. For example, when you’re in a meeting with your executive team or your peers, you’re gathering information on the direction and expectations, and when in meetings with your team or in 1:1s, you’re looking for every opportunity to either clarify direction, set expectations, or give feedback. When you’re devising metrics, you’re setting expectations and building the framework for objective feedback.

I could argue that giving feedback is the most important – as long as YOU are clear on where the team needs to be headed, and what YOU expect, you can manage and orient your team through feedback.

Unfortunately, giving feedback is, in my experience, the skill lacking most in managers and leaders. Many leaders have a “set it and forget it” mentality – they do a good job communicating the vision, but they expect their team to simply go forth and execute. If they do give feedback, they’re saving it for annual reviews.

Great feedback, on the other hand, is:

• specific
• actionable
• timely

Be thoughtful and specific with your feedback. “Good job” is pretty much useless as feedback. Good job at what? What part? Contrast that with “Great job at managing that customer interaction. I really appreciate the way you listened with empathy to their concerns, and addressed each one thoughtfully. That person will be a customer for life.”

Feedback also needs to be actionable – what is it you want them to keep doing or stop doing? For example, “I noticed you got into an argument over email with Joe in sales. Did you notice it escalated quickly, and went back and forth for two days? It’s easy to misunderstand someone over email, and impossible to read cues. From now on, if an email goes back and forth more than once, I’d like you to call the person, or set a meeting to talk about it in person. Typically you’ll resolve things much faster in person.”

And most importantly, feedback needs to be timely. By the time you address your praise or concern in a yearly performance review, we’ve long since forgotten the specifics, or worse, we remember them differently. Or, we’ve learned the lesson and the feedback is now a moot point. If it can’t be addressed in the moment, schedule a call or meeting to discuss the feedback no more than a day later.

Some managers have an attitude that “If I haven’t told you you’re doing something wrong, then you’re doing a good job”. This is also useless, and a wasted opportunity. Good feedback is much more powerful than negative. As human beings, we remember positive reinforcement much more than we do negative feedback. Whenever you see actions and behaviors you want to see more of, point it out.

Which brings me to:

Praise in public, scorn in private.

Whenever you can praise someone in public, do it. Not only will you be reinforcing the right behaviors, but it’s an opportunity to reinforce your expectations with the whole team. For example “You know how I’m always saying we need to be proactive. I want to give Jed some kudos – the minute our supplier was overdue in sending the part, he got straight on the phone with our them. He didn’t wait an extra day or two to see if it would show up, and he didn’t email them hoping for an answer sometime this week. He dealt with it immediately. It turns out our supplier simply forgot. They’re rushing the part overnight and we’ll have it tomorrow so we can stay on schedule”.

On the other hand, no one likes to be dressed down in public. There’s a good chance that the person will be so focused on the the shame. of being called out in front of their peers that they’re really not listening to your feedback, nor is the rest of the team who’s feeling embarrassed or even defensive of their colleague. Save negative feedback for one-to-one meetings when you can discuss it in person, and in more detail.

How do you know if your feedback is being heard and absorbed? Remember that it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear. You can be exceedingly clear, specific, and detailed, but they may not be ready to hear it or may disagree completely. If you have any doubt, ask the person “what did you take away from our conversation?” That gives you the opportunity to hear, in their own words, what they heard, and for you to approach the feedback from a different angle if it didn’t land.

From time to time we have to give particularly tough feedback, which is even more difficult when the person is otherwise a solid performer. For most managers, this is uncomfortable territory and not one we get a lot of practice at. This is where I love the Fierce Conversations model. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. The model goes like this – state your truth, then invite the other person to respond. Here’s an example: “I’m noticing lately that you’re disengaged in meetings. Normally you have a lot to contribute, but these last few weeks I’m seeing you leaning back, rolling your eyes, and not saying much of anything in our meetings. What’s going on?”. And then – listen. Don’t rush to judgement, interrupt, or over-explain. For most people, one of two things are going to happen – either they are going to own their behavior (they may not even realize you’ve noticed), or maybe there’s a reason for it – issues in their personal life, or issues at work that they have a tough time articulating. People are more open to feedback when they feel they’ve been heard, and in either case, you have a much better chance of the feedback landing when it’s a conversation.

Giving feedback doesn’t come naturally to most people, which means we need to practice. So even when (or especially when) it feels uncomfortable, lean in. Don’t worry about your delivery being perfect every time – it won’t be. We’re dealing with human beings. Just keep at it, and it will become more natural over time.

I’ll leave you with one more thing – the advice someone gave you about starting and finishing with a compliment when you have tough feedback to deliver? Toss it out. The compliment sandwich is B.S. By all means, try to balance good feedback with constructive feedback over time, but give one piece of feedback at a time, and make sure it’s specific, actionable, and timely. Giving three pieces of feedback at once in a sandwich is a sure recipe that at least two of them will be ignored, and potentially the third one watered down.