One of the most common mistakes you see in modern working environments is that feedback and most likely critical feedback is often left too late to have the best impact and learning experience for all who are involved.
Giving constructive critique within the minutes, hours and at most a couple of days after something triggered the need to give feedback is the best approach. This enables you to listen and understand the persons perspective also as usually our feedback reflects our point of view (which can have bias) or worse case comes from 2nd hand information.
It’s a two way street and you shouldn’t rush to any conclusions, enable your feedback partner the opportunity to explain their thought process or actions, remembering Norm Keith with his statement “Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand” that’s why good leaders listen.
Speaking of 2nd hand feedback (when you receive feedback about your colleague from someone else, from a situation or topic you’re not involved with) tread very very lightly, without having first hand information, you are potentially causing more harm than good as you cannot properly articulate the delicacies of the situational feedback. You are also most likely damaging your reputation with your colleague who you give feedback to as it shows your bias and that you do not have a realm of trust with the colleague. The best approach in this situation is to inform the person who gives you feedback about your colleague to reach out directly to give the feedback. This helps to enable and foster a great feedback culture and is building bridges and not walls.
In this crazy world, we often have a lot to deal with at home and work and the urge to handle a topic quickly can seem like the easy approach, but remember the easy path comes at a cost. Is that cost of losing trust, losing reputation and missing out on fostering feedback culture the right price to pay?
Giving constructive critique within the minutes, hours and at most a couple of days after something triggered the need to give feedback is the best approach. This enables you to listen and understand the persons perspective also as usually our feedback reflects our point of view (which can have bias) or worse case comes from 2nd hand information.
It’s a two way street and you shouldn’t rush to any conclusions, enable your feedback partner the opportunity to explain their thought process or actions, remembering Norm Keith with his statement “Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand” that’s why good leaders listen.
Speaking of 2nd hand feedback (when you receive feedback about your colleague from someone else, from a situation or topic you’re not involved with) tread very very lightly, without having first hand information, you are potentially causing more harm than good as you cannot properly articulate the delicacies of the situational feedback. You are also most likely damaging your reputation with your colleague who you give feedback to as it shows your bias and that you do not have a realm of trust with the colleague. The best approach in this situation is to inform the person who gives you feedback about your colleague to reach out directly to give the feedback. This helps to enable and foster a great feedback culture and is building bridges and not walls.
In this crazy world, we often have a lot to deal with at home and work and the urge to handle a topic quickly can seem like the easy approach, but remember the easy path comes at a cost. Is that cost of losing trust, losing reputation and missing out on fostering feedback culture the right price to pay?