Never mind giving great feedback, GETTING it can be just as hard…

There’s a problem when it comes to getting great feedback. I am often asked to support leaders in organisations to help them give feedback and you can find plenty of models to help make those observations succinct, specific, and helpful.

Far less is written about how to get great feedback.

If we are to grow and keep growing, we need to know as much as we possibly can about what we are doing that our teams find helpful – enabling them to do their best work both when we are with them, and when they are working under their own steam.

We also need to know what we are (probably accidentally) doing that means their brains might not do their best thinking when working with us.

The problem is that when you ask someone who is less senior than you or has less experience than you for feedback, their brains can be reluctant to offer up a true observation. Here are some common things I know from my research that people tell themselves, which means the gems they might have for us remain unsaid:

Some are perhaps more obvious:

“They scare me—no way I’m brave enough to tell them the truth, I’ll just say everything is fine and hope someone else feeds it back.” (Note to self if you see yourself as a bit ‘Bottom Right,’ sometimes!)

“I can’t be bothered to feed this back–what will they actually do about it?” (Note those who have a tendency to spend too much time in ‘bottom left!’)

“They are so nice; I don’t want to hurt their feelings,” (Too much time in Top Left anyone?!)

There is a universal one:

“Urgh, no, it will feel awkward…”

Some, however, are a bit more complicated:

“I’m not qualified to feed that back–they might have intended to do/say X or Y and my relative inexperience will show if I mention it.”

Or

“I won’t feed that back; it’s quite a small thing and they are good overall.”

The problem is that it is often the small things that combined can make a big difference. The concept of ‘marginal gains’ is at play. Often someone is not doing something big that is getting in the way of us doing our best thinking or work, it is a small niggle of a thing, something that if they stopped or started would make a bit of a difference…but not enough to make it worth your brain convincing you it is worth the discomfort!

So how do we get these small but powerful nuggets – so we can make our own marginal gains?

I have a technique that I train on my accredited coaching programmes so that when we are observing each other coach we can make sure that the small tweaks do get noted and fed back.

I use it all the time after say a public speaking gig where it seems to have gone brilliantly and because I’m seen as the ‘expert’ I might not get the small thing that would make a small difference (but could make a big difference when added to other small things!)

I simply ask.

“What did you like?”

And:

“Do you have an ‘Even Better If’ for me?”

I find that the mixture of the collaborative language encourages people to feel that their feedback will be helpful – even if it is a tiny thing. Sometimes I might make the sentence longer to emphasise I really want the small, granular stuff:

“Do you have any ‘Even Better If’s’ I could take away? Even small things are hugely helpful to me?”

I never fail to get feedback. I often wonder how many of the brilliant nuggets I would still be blind to without this simple turn of phrase.