Like many people, over the holidays I read quite a few books and in a couple of the books on leadership, the authors were quite critical of the feedback approach that is sometimes referred to as the sh** sandwich.
One of the books that were critical of this approach was The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz – which is a great book and I would highly recommend reading it, particularly if you are a founder.
Put simply, this feedback approach follows this process:
- Start the conversation with a compliment
- Move on to the criticisms or tougher feedback
- Finish with a positive comment
Some authors argue that this may work with more junior employees, however, a more experienced person sees the compliments as simply filling time. They know the bad stuff is on its way, and that is all they will really hear, remember, or care about.
I have used this approach for over 30 years, and given the criticisms, I felt it warranted an article to explain how this feedback approach can indeed be an effective tool to provide powerful and impactful feedback. My overriding message is that it is not about the order of the feedback, it is about HOW you do it. I have broken the “HOW” into three groups: THE PROCESS, YOUR DELIVERY, THEIR RECEPTIVENESS.
THE PROCESS
- The approach I have used throughout my career, which I initially learnt while working at YUM Brands, was to break the discussion into three sections:
- What I appreciate about the individual (the positive stuff).
- How they can be more effective (the constructive stuff/the sh** in the sandwich).
- Open conversation. Depending on the time of the year and where this individual is at in their career, this could be about their career goals/aspirations and additional development plans, or simply be a further discussion on their strengths and areas of opportunity.
- Prepare in advance, with a clean sheet each time. If you have done this before for the individual, do not use a past version and update – start afresh. It should take you 15-30 mins to prepare for each of your direct reports. Be equally thoughtful of the positives and the opportunity areas. For the positives, they should be as constructive and as evidenced based as the opportunities, as these are the behaviours that you want the leader to continue to exhibit.
- People can and do count, so ensure you have at least two more positives than opportunities. While this might sound contrived, you want to send the right signal. Unless you do want to send a very tough message to the individual; then put as many negatives as you want.
- Only share the page one dot point at a time. You want a conversation, not them reading ahead. If it is face-to-face, put the page in front of them and have another page that slides, revealing point by point. If virtual, uncover point by point. At the end, send them the page. You will find your team will keep these, and over time, will compare them to previous versions.
An example is below:
What I appreciate
- You have noticeably grown in the way you run the Townhall and All-hands meetings. It is obvious to everyone that you are a leader and that you have a clear picture of the company’s vision and strategic plans.
- You have handled the pressure of the role very well over the last year. Great calming characteristics for your team to see. The team can see that you are in control.
- You are proactive in getting ahead of curve on profit improvement plans.
- You have a strong desire to hit your target.
- You are building a great team with some excellent new hires.
How you can be more effective
- Be a bit more open in our discussions about the business. At times it feels like you are not open to all options, you can become a bit defensive or explain it away.
- Continue to work on your big projects, your legacy. The team owns the business-as-usual work, but I need you to be thinking about and working on our bolder goals.
- Continue with the coaching – it is having visible benefits.
YOUR DELIVERY
- Be yourself. As a leader, giving constructive feedback is one of your most important responsibilities. You must be comfortable, authentic and conversational in your delivery.
- Be prepared, particularly for areas where you anticipate more challenging pushback from the individual. Have evidence ready and think about how you will word it. Sometimes, drawing comparisons to yourself can help. For example, “I have noticed that in our team meetings, in areas where you are not responsible, you become very quiet and disengaged. I can understand this because when I was a divisional leader, I was similar. But I encourage you to stay engaged as I am confident you can add value across so many areas of our business”.
- Be aware of their openness and how they are reacting to your feedback. Probe them with open questions on how they feel about the feedback and whether they agree, or not.
- Know that the first couple of times you do this, they may not be particularly open. There needs to be trust between the two of you for feedback to work.
- A final filter is look at the page you have created and think “how would I feel if I received this feedback”? Reflect, consider, and revise your wording, where needed.
- Create a habit of giving timely and frequent feedback. It is ok/great to just give positive feedback, without the “how you can be more effective”. For example, after a client meeting, you may say “Great job today, I really appreciated the detail you went into, and you handled the client pushback really well with some excellent examples.” Full stop.
THEIR RECEPTIVENESS
- Everyone loves feedback, and most people know they have much to learn, particularly if they are at the leadership team level. However, their cynicism or openness will initially be determined by their past experiences with feedback sessions.
- They will be more open if they know you are in their corner. This occurs if your feedback conversations are frequent, unprompted, and not defined by the HR calendar.
Giving impactful feedback is achieved by using a structured process, however, HOW you do it is more important. Impactful Leadership can assist you and your team on this journey on building a strong feedback structure and culture.
Image credit: iStock.com/Pekic
