Ep233 How to Give Feedback People Can Actually Use

Feedback shapes performance, trust, and culture, yet many leaders struggle to give it in ways that truly help people grow. In this workshop excerpt, Humanergy Coach Corey Fernandez breaks down what effective feedback looks like, why it matters, and how to make it a regular, low-stress part of your leadership rhythm.

You’ll learn:
 • Why feedback often creates surprise or defensiveness
 • How to shift toward a feedback culture people can depend on
 • Practical frameworks for strengthening performance and trust
 • Simple language for giving clear, behavior-based feedback
 • When to deliver feedback in real time, in writing, or on video

This session comes from Humanergy’s free monthly workshop series. To join an upcoming session, visit humanergy.com.

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Transcript

First thing, just a simple definition, right? This is a definition of feedback. It's the process of offering our observations, suggestions, performance improvements, and so on that we can share with another human being to help each other strengthen performance.

Now, it comes with, in some cases, some wins for organizations and teams. When we're doing this work well, when we crave feedback and we're getting a great feedback experience in our organization, it has impact. It can lead to performance gains. It can truly accelerate our learning and growth.

It can be a great source of motivation, give us energy, help us feel more productive when we know we're focused on the right things or we have something to reach for. It's also a key ingredient in high trust relationships. We might not think about that part all the time, but it truly can be a difference maker in how we build trust with one another.

And it absolutely can bring us more meaning and purpose in our work. It helps us see how we impact the world around us, knowing that we get to show up and have impact.

Now, on the flip side, some of us have been in private teams or organizations where we have reasons to loathe feedback. This is tricky. When feedback isn’t applied well, when it's poorly designed or too much critique is involved, it can lead to performance getting worse.

When we're in environments where we're constantly feeling like we're under criticism, it can lead to fatigue, anxiety, and so on. It can lower trust. In toxic environments, feedback might be used, but it can actually damage relationships.

It can also be an amplifier for our biases and our subjective ways of seeing the world. I'll share some tips today on how to sidestep some of that. And finally, it can feel like an absolute verdict on our value. We often don’t see it as a data point to learn and grow from. It can feel very much like an absolute being thrown our way.

So we're in this space because there's a slippery slope between doing this really well and doing this poorly.

We have to ask ourselves, why should we continue to invest in getting better at feedback? Wouldn't we be better off shying away from this? But we know there's tremendous value.

You listed it in the chat box today, the importance of feeling seen and valued, the importance of knowing we’re making contributions. It absolutely is a difference maker in performance. And, to be honest with you, when done well, it changes people's lives.

I can count probably three, four, five instances in my career where someone changed my life in one moment. I still think about the feedback they offered me and the way they shared it. It set me up for much bigger impact in my career. That’s why we want to get clear on how to do this better in our workplaces.

You stated the importance of getting this right in the chat box. It absolutely is a difference maker.

Job number one, and there will be two jobs today, is to limit surprises. Feedback shouldn’t be something that shows up out of nowhere and shocks us or shakes us to our core.

When we run 360 processes and work with clients, we help them understand that it’s natural to receive feedback that feels like a shock. Some feedback might make us feel angry or frustrated. We might get defensive and want to push back. That is natural.

With leadership, teams, and organizations, we can limit that experience. We want to use feedback well enough and frequently enough that we get to acceptance faster and it doesn't feel like such a shock or a reason to be defensive.

We think about this as a continuum. If feedback in a team experience is infrequent, unpredictable, and reactive, it's more likely to create moments of shock, defensiveness, irritability, and so on.

When feedback is frequent, predictable, and proactive, it becomes an expected routine that we can depend on to improve performance. It lessens the shockwave and the frustration of receiving new information that seems to come out of the blue.

There are times when we can look back in our careers and see we were on the left side of the continuum, where feedback only showed up during annual reviews or weeks after a behavior happened. That’s the minimum.

But when we increase feedback toward the right side of the continuum, where it's not only an annual review but also weekly or monthly one-to-ones, team meetings, project debriefs, and so on, we use feedback regularly to increase the value we can bring. It becomes less of a shock and something we crave.

That’s job number one: limit shock waves and make feedback a frequent, dependable expectation for participating on the team.

Job number two is getting clear on two questions.
 First, what do you want to achieve with the feedback? What’s the purpose?
 Second, what delivery method is most appropriate?

If we think about these two questions, it's a great way to get clear on why we’re using feedback and how to deliver it for best impact.

Starting with the purpose, there are times when feedback can strengthen values and culture. There are times when it can drive performance improvements. And there are times when it can help build trust through self-disclosure. I’ll speak to all three before we move to delivery methods.

Starting with values and culture, all of us in organizations have values. They often sit on the wall and aren’t truly embedded in how we work. What I often see is this example from my kids’ elementary school. Their mascot is the Norseman, and they have a routine for celebrating values daily and weekly.

N stands for nice, O for organized, R for responsible, S for safe, E for engaged. When teachers see students demonstrating these values, they recognize them on the spot. They get stickers and so on. It reinforces what’s expected and brings the culture to life intentionally.

Elementary schools actually excel at strengthening values and culture, more so than many organizations, because we miss these opportunities. This is a low-risk way to reinforce what we want to see more of.

Next, when we think about driving performance improvement, we love the framework on the right side. Some of you may know the sandwich model, but we prefer this one.

It starts with “keep doing.” There are likely things people are doing that we want to reinforce because they’re leading to success.

Next, what else is expected? What results do we need to see going forward?
 Is there anything they should start doing, skills or practices that will help them close the gap?
 And what should they stop doing, the behaviors that are getting in the way?

We use a garden metaphor. The soil may already contain nutrients that lead to a productive garden. We want to keep feeding that. We may need new seeding for future growth. We occasionally have to weed. But if we spend too much time weeding, we become overly critical and miss opportunities to reinforce strengths and nurture growth.

We love this model because it's future focused and supports a productive conversation. For example:
 “Hey Quay, reflecting on the board presentation yesterday, what are you doing that’s working? Why do you think it’s working?”
 “What do you need to do to continue making progress?”
 “What could you start doing to accelerate toward that goal?”
 “What should you stop doing that might be holding you back?”

This model helps people see what they can reach for while addressing what may be holding them back.

The third purpose is building trust through self-disclosure. There are two parts.
 Part one is highlighting specific behaviors. It must be objective and evidence based, not an interpretation.

For example, if someone picks up their phone when I'm talking, the objective evidence is: “When I'm talking, you pick up your phone and start thumbing through your screen.”
 The interpretation is: “You're so disrespectful.” That puts people on the defensive. They don't know what was disrespectful, and I’m missing the chance to name the behavior.

Part two is sharing my experience of the behavior, how it impacts me. That shows someone that their behavior has an impact and gives them the opportunity to adjust.

Here are a few examples:

“When you stopped the discussion to ask if everyone was okay with the tight deadline, I felt respected, which made me feel more motivated to meet the goal.”
 “When you took the lead to contact that difficult client directly, I felt incredibly supported, which made me feel like I can rely on you for tough situations.”

And constructive examples:
 “When you sent that email late Friday afternoon asking for the report by Monday morning, I felt stressed about my weekend plans, which made me feel like my personal time wasn’t valued.”
 “When the document you handed in had several simple typos, I felt frustrated, which made me feel like I needed to spend extra time proofreading.”

Specific behaviors plus impact are essential. Most people don't intend those impacts. When they understand what's happening, they can adjust. Leading with behaviors rather than interpretations keeps people less defensive.

Now shifting to the delivery method. There are different ways we can do this to make feedback more consistent and frequent.

Real time is highly recommended. It encourages a two-way dialogue. We don’t want to throw feedback at somebody and expect them to sit with it. They may have questions.

If it’s written, schedule a check-in to ensure understanding. Words can mean different things, intent can get misconstrued, and looping back ensures full value.

Video is also an excellent option. If we won’t see someone for a week or a couple months, we can offer short, timely feedback that keeps momentum from dropping. Screen capture tools are great for this, especially when we need to show what we're seeing.

The last piece is choosing how we share. Sometimes we lead with our perspective. Other times, we open the conversation by inviting their perspective first, asking them to assess how they believe they performed or what they learned.

Inviting their perspective often leads to great dialogue. We can see where our perceptions match or differ. If they match, we may need to say very little. Many people are quite self-aware when given space to reflect.

It doesn’t always have to be us leading. There is great value in asking others to share where they think they're at with their performance and behavior.