receiving feedback - web viewthis workshop is designed to help workplace leaders learn how to...

Delivering Feedback EffectivelyParticipant Guide

26th AnnualConference for the Office ProfessionalMoving Toward Peak Performance

MONDAY, APRIL 18, 2016

Delivering Feedback Effectively 2016 1

Course Expectations and ObjectivesAs human beings, we often hunger for feedback. However, many people will tell you that when they do get feedback, it’s often because of something they have done wrong. This workshop is designed to help workplace leaders learn how to provide feedback any time that the message is due. Whether feedback is formal or informal, and whether it is provided to employees, peers, or someone else, there are ways that it can be structured to be effective and lasting. This course will help participants learn why the way we deliver is feedback is important, how to deliver a message so that people accept it and make changes that may be needed, and how to accept feedback that we are offered.

Expectations Your interaction and participation are critical

Allow yourself to be a learner

Expect unfinished business – modified session

Keep notes throughout the session as you uncover new ideas and information

“Ground Rules”

Learning ObjectivesAt the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

Describe characteristics of effective feedback

Apply a framework for providing formal or informal feedback

Identify new techniques in application

Your Facilitator

Shelly Vils HavelPerformance Management Coordinator Talent, Recruitment and Engagement TeamOffice of Talent Management, Office of Human Resources21 N. Park St. Suite 5101Phone: 608-890-2540Email: [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

What does effective feedback mean to you?

When Feedback is Needed

Some people want – and need – feedback more frequently than others. It’s up to you to gauge what is appropriate and what you can offer constructively and effectively. Most people get far less feedback than they want. If you change your habits to deliver more feedback more frequently, that’s great! We see feedback as a positive event, and we will teach you how to make it that way.

Gauge what is appropriate What you can offer constructively Effectively / With a positive effect or change

₋ Timely₋ Applicable₋ Plan or call to change₋ Suggestions

Receiving Feedback

Assume ______________ ________________


Steps for Giving FeedbackFeedback can call attention to a problem or a potential problem. It should be given in the spirit of mutual respect and learning. Similarly, positive messages need to be delivered so they have a healthy and coaching impact.

1. Point to a common goal; convey your positive intentMost of us assume that “constructive feedback” means “criticism” and we’d rather not hear it. Conveying your positive intent will make it easier for the other person to hear your feedback.

2. Describe specifically what you have observed.For feedback to be effective, the other person needs to believe that what you say is real and valid. This is more likely to happen if your comments are specific and concrete. By simply stating the facts without making a judgment or interpretation, you establish a common ground on which both you and the other person can build a solution.

3. State the impact of the behavior or action.It’s another way to shift the focus from the other person. It can establish a mutual stake in resolving the situation. It also helps keep the discussion objective.

4. Ask the other person to respond.If constructive feedback is going to pay off, it cannot be a one-way process. You need the other person’s involvement and ideas.

5. Focus the discussion on solutions.Solutions are the whole point of your conversation. Besides, by focusing on solutions, you’re moving the focus away from who is right and who is wrong.

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Planning for Difficult Situations

Set the stage – Take time to plan

Provide the feedback

Listen – Check for understanding

Set goal for improvement – follow up

Examples / Practice Scenarios

1. How to give feedback when a supervisor is treating other staff disrespectfully (making mean comments and putting people down).

2. A supervisor is asking for feedback about their behavior, but when I provide it honestly there are sometimes negative repercussions. How should I respond if they ask for feedback in the future?

3. Telling someone who is already on the verge of burnout that they need to do more or do better.

4. Negative attitude repeatedly- which brings down the team.

5. Repeated efforts to tell someone he/she speaks in a condescending manner to staff and pattern continues after a number of conversations/attempts to curtail the behavior.

6. Colleague who sits close by who is very loud and disruptive to the rest of the office space even when doing his/her job. Job requires many phone calls throughout the day and is extremely distracting to those who sit in the same space.

7. Positive interactions that border on staff/provider relationships that are overly friendly and at times not appropriate to a work setting/environment.

8. Difficult personal behaviors—i.e. inappropriate attire, bad breath, condescending tone in conversations or written communications.


Feedback Planning Guide

1. Convey your positive intent. What will you say to set a positive tone and open the conversation?

2. Describe specifically what you have observed. What specific observations or examples can you share to support your concerns?

3. State the impact of the behavior or action. How is this affecting your performance? The team’s performance? Relationships with customers?

4. Ask the other person to respond. What will you say to draw the other person’s response?

5. Focus the discussion on solutions. What you say here will depend on the reaction from the person in step 4. Some questions to consider and prepare for include:

How do you think the other person will respond? How will you handle that response?

What change will you ask for or what suggestions will you offer?

What are you willing to do differently to help solve the problem?


Positive / Compliments / Recognition Situations

Set the stage – Take time to plan

Provide the feedback

Listen – Check for understanding

Follow up

Examples / Practice Scenarios

1. You are doing a great job. Keep up the good work.

2. I want to recognize our team for all of their hard work.

3. This department has put in crazy hours and gone above and beyond to get the job done.

4. I liked the way you delivered that message.

Feedback Planning Guide


5. Convey your positive intent. What will you say to set a positive tone and open the conversation?

6. Describe specifically what you have observed. What specific observations or examples can you share to support your concerns?

7. State the impact of the behavior or action. How is this affecting your performance? The team’s performance? Relationships with customers?

8. Ask the other person to respond. What will you say to draw the other person’s response?

9. Focus the discussion on solutions. What you say here will depend on the reaction from the person in step 4. Some questions to consider and prepare for include:

How do you think the other person will respond? How will you handle that response?

What change will you ask for or what suggestions will you offer?

What are you willing to do differently to help solve the problem?


Receiving Feedback

Accepting difficult feedback from others can be challenging. We often hear feedback as a very personal attack on behavior that we already may not be proud of. It helps to think about feedback as feedback and as something to help you improve. This is what we refer to as positive intent.

While you may hesitate in doing this, it can be an outstanding opportunity for you to grow. It also means that you are going to follow up a feedback session by asking the other individual if your feedback was helpful, sensitive to their needs, and respectful.

Here are some tips on accepting feedback.

Listen attentively. Make sure you understand the feedback and what needs improvement. You may even want to paraphrase the other person’s remarks.

Ask for details. Find out as much as you can about the incident(s) described. Ask lots of open ended questions to gather all the information that you can.

Find something to agree with. You don’t need to say that you were wrong if you weren’t, but it does do a lot for your own integrity for you to say that you were wrong if you were. Of equal importance, you need to acknowledge the person’s right to provide comments and to recognize the importance of the person’s concerns. If you cannot agree with the other person about any aspect of the feedback being offered, you could be perceived as rejecting the person as well.

Try not to take their comments personally.If they’ve learned anything about offering feedback, they will know they need to speak to your behaviors and not your personal self, but not everyone knows this. Consider that they are being brave and offering feedback (not an easy thing for most people to do) as an opportunity to improve yourself.


Key Take-Aways

Learning Objectives – Recap

Describe characteristics of effective feedback

Apply a framework for providing formal or informal feedback

Identify new techniques in application

Don’t forget to complete your electronic survey – Your feedback is appreciated.

Additional Resources and InformationDelivering Feedback Effectively 2016 10

Communication / Clarifying Strategies:

If you are going to improve your feedback skills, you also need to work on your ability to ask thoughtful questions; questions that give us more information about the individual you are speaking with (whether it is an employee, colleague, or a supplier) and their work, thoughts, and feelings. To be successful in hosting a feedback meeting or interview, the interviewer must have knowledge and skills in both being an effective listener and in asking the right questions in order to be effective.

As leaders, we should be spending a lot of our time asking questions and providing answers. When it comes to asking, however, we often aren’t aware of our technique. Open questions in particular often give us difficulty, which is unfortunate since they are the most important ones for us to become skilled at using. If you are having trouble with open questions, it can be helpful to get more comfortable with small talk and easing yourself into the conversation at hand.

Questioning Skills

The right questions provide structure to your feedback session. Here are some general guidelines:

Ask one question at a time, instead of trying to get to everything at once. Phrase the question in simple, easily understandable words and terms that don’t

intimidate your conversation partner.Keep your questions brief. Questions that are more than two sentences in length are too

long; break them up and ask them as two or more questions.Keep your phrasing positive. Reframe negative questions to make them more positive,

which will encourage conversation.Use open questions to get more information, rather than relying on closed questions.Follow up on incomplete answers by probing for more information.

You can plan for the conversation ahead of time and decide what kind of questions to ask depending on what your goals are. Design your questions to help you with any of the following:

Get informationGain consensusFocus conversationsBegin closing the conversationGather opinions

Questioning SkillsDelivering Feedback Effectively 2016 11

Open Ended QuestionsThese are broad, general questions that require your conversation partner to provide more than just a “yes” or “no” answer. They also permit the other person to decide how much information to give.

Open questions can do the following:Give us more informationEncourage your conversation partner to speak openly Encourage people to share opinions and ideasHelp us determine if people have interpreted what we say accurately

The following are examples of open ended questions that can be used in feedback sessions: How would you evaluate your accomplishments this quarter? Tell me how I can help you achieve your goals. How do you think the project developed?

Hypothetical Open Questions These questions allow the partner in your conversation some flexibility and choice in deciding how to respond to an invented but possible situation. Since they are hypothetical, they give you, as interviewer or leader of the conversation, greater flexibility in designing a question to fit a particular situation. Here are some examples:

“Let’s change roles for a moment. Suppose you were supervisor of this department and someone came to you with a concern similar to yours. How would you like to handle it?”

“If you learned a process or procedure that that could free up one hour of your time each week, what do you see yourself doing during that hour?”

Questioning Skills


Closed Questions Closed questions can be answered with a single word or two, such as a simple yes or no. They can begin the closing process in a conversation, or provide confirmation of a detail, but they don’t usually lead to a richer conversation or gathering more information. The advantage of closed questions is that they give you control over the questions and the type of answers you receive. Closed questions are easy to interpret and more questions can be answered in less time.

However, closed questions don’t allow for detailed explanations or for the other person to share how they feel about a particular circumstance. If you wish to encourage a richer response or to encourage a frustrated person to talk freely, then you need to avoid asking closed questions. Here are some examples of closed questions:

“Does this make you angry?” “Do you think this assessment is fair?”

To open up those same questions, you could try these open-ended statements:“Tell me how you feel about this situation.”“What are your thoughts about this assessment” “You seem concerned. Tell me about it?”

When we do not get enough information by using open-ended questions, we can use probes to expand the conversation.

Verbal and Nonverbal Probes

A probe will encourage your conversation partner to add to their previous response. Verbal probes are often a single word or short phrase. Some examples are:

“Tell me more about that.”“That’s interesting. Tell me more.”“Really?”“Why?”“Can you give me a specific example of what you mean?”

Nonverbal probes rely on your body language and gestures to get the same results as a verbal probe. Some examples are:

Raising the eyebrows as if you are surprisedNoddingSmilingUncrossing your armsLeaning into the conversation


Probing TechniquesThere are many ways that you can use probing in your conversations. We’ve provided some techniques for you below.

1. Ask an open question, such as:“Can you describe that more clearly?” “Would you give me a specific example of what you mean?” “What do you think we should do?”

You’ll soon recognize that if you ask too many of these questions, your conversation partner will feel like they are under interrogation, so use them carefully.

2. Pause. Many of us feel uncomfortable when silence overtakes a conversation, and we will fill the silence by expanding on what was said previously.

3. Use reflective or mirroring questions. For example, if the employee says “I just don’t feel challenged by my work anymore,” you may respond by just reflecting back to them, “Challenged?” Then pause. Usually, the other person will provide you with an expanded answer without you asking more questions or interrogating. These kinds of statements also serve to focus or clarify and summarize without interrupting the flow of the conversation. They demonstrate your intent to understand the speaker’s thoughts and feelings.

4. Paraphrase what has just been said in your own words. “So if I understand you correctly, you…” Using this technique shows that you want to understand your conversation partner and that you want to be accurate. It also allows the sender to hear back what they have said from someone else’s point of view.

5. Summary questions are a helpful way of probing and winding up the conversation at the same time. “You have spoken to your colleague about his foul language in the office, you have tried to ignore it, and you remain concerned about the impact his swearing has on our visitors and staff. None of these techniques have worked to reduce the amount of swearing and now you are asking me to intervene. Have I got it right?”

Awake and interestedA smile in your voiceStraightforward language, without jargonGlad the person called or visitedEasy to understand with moderate volume and rateWell-modulated, varied tone


Recommended Reading List

Kerry Patterson Joseph Grenny Ron McMillan Al Switzler, Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition: Edition 2, McGraw Hill Professional September 16, 2011

Blanchard, Kenneth, Jim Ballard, Thad Lacinak, and Chuck Tompkins. Whale Done! Free Press, 2002.

Boothman, Nicholas. How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less. Workman Publishing Company, 2000.

Coonradt, Charles. The Game of Work. Gibbs Smith, 2007.Daniels, Aubrey C. Bringing Out the Best in People. McGraw-Hill, 2000.Elton, Chester, and Adrian Gostick. The 24-Carrot Manager. Gibbs Smith, 2002.Hamilton, Cheryl, and Cordell Parker. Communicating for Results. Wadsworth Publishing, 2007.Ivancevich, John M., Robert Konopaske, and Michael T. Matteson. Organizational Behavior and

Management. McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007. Murphy, Kevin J. Effective Listening. Bantam Publishers, 1988.Pink, Daniel. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Riverhead Books, 2009.


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