Effective Feedback Criteria and Strategies
By: Sorin Dumitrascu
Tags: Strategy, Management, Business, Leadership, Feedback

Effective Feedback Criteria and Strategies

Increase the Likelihood of Achieving a Positive Outcome From the Feedback Sessions

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Clarifying Your Feedback Strategy

Clarifying your strategy now can help you feel prepared and confident as you give constructive feedback in the future. You can use the following three steps to help you clarify the constructive feedback strategy:

adopting an effective personal feedback style, meeting necessary feedback criteria, and using appropriate timing.

Adopting an effective personal feedback style

Your style is the way you conduct yourself as you provide feedback to others. Once you’ve adopted an effective style, you’re a step closer to giving constructive feedback in the workplace. The following are some of the elements of a desirable personal feedback style:

Being courteous — The assertive professional style and the constructive feedback strategy both rely heavily on courteous behavior. Your courtesy will put others at ease and foster their hearing the feedback you’re providing. Courtesy is essential to the constructive feedback strategy.

— The assertive professional style and the constructive feedback strategy both rely heavily on courteous behavior. Your courtesy will put others at ease and foster their hearing the feedback you’re providing. Courtesy is essential to the constructive feedback strategy. Being truthful — It’s essential to be truthful in the feedback you give others. In fact, feedback’s useless unless it is truthful. Your task is to provide the truth in a way that’s sensitive to others’ feelings while also getting the feedback message across to them.

— It’s essential to be truthful in the feedback you give others. In fact, feedback’s useless unless it is truthful. Your task is to provide the truth in a way that’s sensitive to others’ feelings while also getting the feedback message across to them. Being positive — Being positive is a useful component of this strategy. Your positive attitude can help others receive and act on the feedback you give them. Remember that your task is to be positive even when the feedback contains criticism.

You will feel more self-assured using the constructive feedback strategy after you’ve adopted an effective personal feedback style and grown accustomed to its use.

Meeting necessary feedback criteria

The necessary criteria for developing a constructive feedback strategy include:

Being specific — Recipients of vague, general statements just aren’t helped by such remarks. So be specific; reference known events, specific times, objective observations, and predictable outcomes.

— Recipients of vague, general statements just aren’t helped by such remarks. So be specific; reference known events, specific times, objective observations, and predictable outcomes. Being objective — This means dealing with observable facts and avoiding the distortion caused when personal feelings or prejudices are present. At times, this ideal can be difficult to achieve, but it’s a good goal to try to reach on a consistent basis.

— This means dealing with observable facts and avoiding the distortion caused when personal feelings or prejudices are present. At times, this ideal can be difficult to achieve, but it’s a good goal to try to reach on a consistent basis. Be descriptive — Always strive to be descriptive. This requires providing a context for presenting facts and observations. This approach allows you to put some life into a conversation that, otherwise, could be a sterile presentation.

Meeting these feedback criteria can help you remain focused on providing feedback that is useful and constructive.

Using appropriate timing

This means knowing the right time to give constructive feedback to someone in the workplace. Appropriate timing for providing constructive feedback can be as basic as determining the most convenient time of day or day of the week. Timing can also be important because of the way it affects project schedules or plans.

You can be successful at clarifying a constructive feedback strategy if you follow the three steps above.

Giving Positive Feedback

Most business professionals have provided feedback to someone. Of course, if you’re a supervisor, you’ve probably given feedback on numerous occasions. And, like other assertive business professionals, you’d like all feedback sessions to be productive and well-received.

The good news is that there are useful steps you can take to increase the likelihood of achieving a positive outcome from the feedback sessions you conduct with others in the workplace. These steps are

1. reviewing goals,

2. describing performance, and

3. reinforcing positive behaviour.

Reviewing goals

This can encompass someone’s personal goals in the workplace as well as goals resulting from a job assignment. A goals review provides a focus and enables you to set the stage for describing a person’s performance in pursuit of that goal.

If you are giving feedback to a subordinate, check at the start to ensure that both he and you clearly understand the goal that you’re discussing in your feedback. You want to reach mutual agreement because the goals are the basis for providing feedback on his actual performance in the workplace.

Beginning a feedback session with a review of goals lets you start in a positive way because goals are concrete and are accepted as a basis for performance assessments and feedback in the workplace.

Describing performance

You should describe the person’s actual performance in a way that’s objective and descriptive. For example, you might say, “I’ve observed that you’re good about meeting milestones and final deadlines.

That certainly helps others in the process to meet their deadlines too.” This approach enables you to maintain a positive tone throughout the performance review.

Reinforcing positive behavior

Your feedback should be designed to help others recognize what they’re doing well and how their actions or behaviors help the organization. Feedback then should encourage them to continue their positive behavior. This means the following:

Identifying action or behavior — When you tell others they’re doing well, be sure to identify those specific actions and behaviors that you think contribute to their success. When they recognize what’s beneficial, they’re much more likely to continue to exhibit those actions and behaviors in the workplace.

— When you tell others they’re doing well, be sure to identify those specific actions and behaviors that you think contribute to their success. When they recognize what’s beneficial, they’re much more likely to continue to exhibit those actions and behaviors in the workplace. Identifying impact on the organization — The positive feedback you provide others can be enhanced by stating specifically how their actions or behaviors help the organization achieve its goals. This is an excellent way to put their positive actions and behaviors in an actual context in the workplace.

You can use a positive feedback strategy to good effect in the workplace. You can foster others’ professional growth when you help them review their goals and performance and when your support reinforces their positive behavior.