Leadership requires you give feedback to your work teams and
their individual members. Effective feedback reinforces team
behaviors that help you reach your business goals.
Here’s a technique, we call the “Feedback Sandwich” that will improve your ability to give effective feedback as a Team Leader.
Many leaders find giving honest, constructive feedback one of the
hardest parts of their job, especially if they are a new leader
giving feedback to former colleagues.
The toughest part of effective feedback is telling your people
about the behaviors you want them to change. What we all know as
“Negative Feedback”. There are two main pitfalls:
- Focusing only on the negative.
If you believe excellence is expected and offer criticism as your
only feedback - you will damage your relationship with the team.
- Avoiding the negative.
If you never offer criticism out of fear that it will damage your
relationship with the team, you lose the authentic interactions
that allow the team to trust you.
One Solution: “The Feedback Sandwich”
The Sandwich puts the “Meat” of constructive criticism between
two slices of positive feedback “Bread”. (our apologies to all
vegetarians!)
It goes like this….
- First tell them what they did well (bread)
- Then say what you would like to change (meat)
- Finish by relating another thing they did well (bread)
You have two slices of “what you did well Bread” with a “Filling” of what you would like them to change.
The next time you give constructive feedback to the team or one
of its members, try the “Feedback Sandwich” approach. You begin
and end the conversation on a positive note and don’t hold back
on what needs to change. With the two-to-one positive to negative feedback ratio and ending on a positive note … we have found this a very well received and effective tool with our Teams.
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Jake 10.15.09 at 10:34 am
I have received this sort of constructed feedback from a manager in the past. Honestly, I think it just makes the employee hate their manager if they didn’t already. In general the feedback sandwich is delivered in such a way that it comes across as very insincere and you can usually identify the real motive for the maneuver immediately. Managers should just come out and say what they need to say. If they have praise, then praise, if they have complaint or critique then give it. Trying to sugar coat it in this very obvious way is just insulting and demeans everyone involved.
Dike Drummond MD CPC 10.15.09 at 10:51 am
I totally agree Jake … an insincere person is a crappy leader no matter what they have to say. You don’t trust or respect them because of their insincerity.
What I am talking about with the feedback sandwich is a way quality, sincere managers can present feedback in a way that the listener is more prone to hear it as feedback rather than a personal critique.
Insincerity is a recipe for disaster as a leader … whether they use the feedback sandwich technique or not.
My two cents,
Dike