Give feedback in a way that feels really good — for you and your team members.

Ever sat through a presentation that was so sinfully dull you couldn’t help but make your grocery list for your weekly meal plan, just for something to do…but when the presenter asked you whether you enjoyed it, you said, “oh yeah, it was great. Really enjoyed it.”

I can almost see you nodding right now — because most of us just aren’t that great at giving feedback.

Giving feedback truly is one of the hardest parts of leadership. 

Knowing how to phrase criticism in a way that’s constructive, that won’t send your perfectionist-leaning employees into a total spin, and that won’t make you feel like a jerk in the process is a skill that takes time and effort to master.

But the consequences of not putting in that time and effort can be huge.

Without appropriate feedback, tiny problems can quickly escalate into big, unfixable issues, individual performance will suffer, and you’ll struggle to hit your organizational goals. Above all, while it might feel like you’re being kind by avoiding negative feedback, ultimately you’re denying people that chance to work at their very best — and reach their full potential.

So, how do you give feedback in a way that feels good for everyone involved?

Well, I’ve recently discovered a new favorite strategy for giving feedback — and it’s a truly incredible way to ensure your criticism lands in a way that feels good for both you and the person on the receiving end while also making it easy for people to take advice and improve performance.

It’s part of a 2-step formula (step 1 of which might just come as a surprise!)

Step 1: Create a culture of feedback in your organization.

Okay, I know you were hoping I’d just give you a super useful script here and send you on your way. 

Well, the script is coming. But there’s one thing I’d invite you to do first that will make any feedback script you use 100% more effective:

Regularly requesting feedback.

Yes, scripts or formulas you can adopt and adapt are a great way to improve your feedback skills. What many leaders actually need to work on first, however, is developing an organizational culture that embraces feedback — and that culture should always start from the top.

Of course, this requires a little reorientation because no one actively enjoys asking for feedback. Doing so makes us feel vulnerable.

But when you, as a manager, regularly ask for feedback you open up a feedback cycle that offers multiple benefits:

1. Feedback begins to feel like just another facet of working life rather than something that only ever happens when someone screws up. As such, your employees won’t panic when the time comes for them to be on the receiving end — they’ll be less likely to go into defensive mode and be more open to what you’re saying. The added bonus: it’ll feel less like a huge deal to you too, so you’ll have less anxiety around the whole process.

2. Because you’re regularly inviting feedback, you’ll know how it feels to face potential criticism. You’ll experience different types of delivery and will learn what type of feedback pushes you towards change and which, at times, hurts your feelings. This will increase your empathy for your team members and help you deliver feedback in ways that are more sensitive and constructive.

3. When you model an ability to embrace feedback and use it to improve your own performance, your people will learn to do likewise.

4. Looking beyond the benefits of creating this feedback loop, learning what you’re getting right as a leader and what you’re getting wrong will be enormously helpful for your own development. You’ll learn about tiny problems before they escalate and you’ll be able to avoid all sorts of issues, from de-motivated employees to inefficiencies in your processes.

Here’s how to make it work:

Ask your team, “How am I doing as a manager? What’s one thing I’m doing well for you right now and what’s one thing that could go better?”

Do this regularly (during a weekly 1:1 is ideal if you can manage it) and remember to accept the feedback with good grace and with a willingness to act on the things you could be doing better.

Step 2: I like. I wish. I wonder.

So you’ve reoriented a little and understand the importance of modeling how to receive feedback; now is the time to bring in a script. And one feedback formula that I really love is this:

I like. I wish. I wonder.

Say you’ve had someone write an organizational report and you need to give feedback. Mention one thing you really like about the report. For example, “You’ve structured this beautifully”. Move on to one thing you wish they’d done differently: “I wish it was a little more concise.” And finish with the “I wonder” part: “I wonder if it would be more impactful if you included a section on X?”

This is incredibly subtle — but incredibly effective too. In fact, it’s so good, you don’t have to save it for your team; it can work just as well on your kids, your in-laws, or even your annoying neighbor!

The truth is, feedback isn’t about criticism — it’s about caring. After all, you didn’t get to where you are now without someone caring about you enough to provide feedback on how you could learn and improve. So creating a culture of feedback in your organization is a great way to pay that forward: when you feel comfortable enough to share and your people feel comfortable enough to listen, you’ll all be able to make greater progress towards your professional goals.

Want to learn more about how to deliver feedback in a way that feels really great for all parties? Take a deeper dive with my How to Give Feedback workshop where we’ll explore the “I like. I wish. I wonder” formula as well as some other easy-to-adapt feedback scripts, like the SBI feedback model from the Center for Creative Leadership, and the Eight-Step Feedback Formula from Candid Culture.

Sign up for The Feedback Workshop! Click here for details on how to join.

Running the Manager Training Series is one of my very favorite things to do ... but I’m not going to lie, this cohort last year had me at the brink.

We were talking about department meetings in general, and they had sooooo many questions.

• ​What would I include and not include?

• Who should run the meeting?

• Should they have a prepared agenda?

• Should the manager hosting the meeting be the only one talking?

• Is a team builder or icebreaker even necessary for an established team?

• What about notes or minutes, if yes, who should take them?

• And, on and on...

This line of questioning went on into delirium. But it did make me ponder their dilemma. Learning about the higher-level stuff was great. But they also wanted to know precisely how I would structure a departmental meeting if I were hosting one.

By the end of the line of questions, it was clear that they wanted my EXACT FORMULA for an effective team meeting. And, friends, this is how The Ideal Team Meeting​ formula was incubated. 

Later that day, I scratched out my ideas and added them to our private LinkedIn group. You know what? It worked! 

The next week a participant said, ​"​Hey Amy​,​ I tried your ideal team meeting format and it worked! Starting with that team builder that you recommended the format worked for my team.​"​ 

Thanks to this cohort, I’ve been deliberating on making more guides like this for SIX MONTHS. Over winter break, I recorded an on-demand that answers the question of exactly what you should include, how, and why. This also led me to plan a series of related classes that will support your curiosity in taking a deeper dive into some management tactics that we talk about at a high level during the ​M​anager ​T​raining ​S​eries.

And now, I’m very pleased to announce that Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting is ready and available for you to make your meetings that much better.

I’ve tested this with a few clients, and here is what one of them had to say:

"The Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting course hit the spot in terms of giving both conceptual and actionable guidance to address my current needs. I'm adopting The Ideal Team Meeting Agenda and adapting it to meet the needs of my senior leader meeting."

— David Weiner, CEO, Social Studies School Service

So if you’ve ever been in a meeting that’s less than great (or run one yourself!) check it out!

Is your team stalled or continuously experiencing mishaps or dysfunction? Managers leading teams that experience repetitive 'issues' often feel battered and unable to right the ship. The first step is to understand what is causing the dysfunction among your team and then get to work correcting it. Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team gives us an excellent roadmap to correct the dysfunction and cultivate strong teams. Whether you have significant issues or a few small burdens, these insights will help. 

In his book, Lencioni identifies that the five dysfunctions include:

1. Absence of trust—Unwilling to be vulnerable within the team.

2. Fear of conflict— Artificial harmony, not discussing real issues, conflict avoidance, unwillingness to speak up or listen.

3. Lack of commitment—Not involving team members in decision-making. Team members may be silent, but silence doesn’t necessarily mean agreement.

4. Avoidance of accountability—An unwillingness to hold each other accountable resulting in mediocracy instead of excellence. Team members duck the responsibility to call peers or superiors out on counterproductive behavior, which lowers the bar.

5. Inattention to results—Focusing on personal success, status, and ego before team success.          

How do you build these capabilities among your team? While each team will be at various stages of development, here are some ideas that we have accumulated that can help grow these capabilities for your team.

1. Absence of Trust. Look for ways to model vulnerability among your team. One example is to include sharing opportunities during team meetings, such as an icebreaker asking: What was your biggest failure in the last month, quarter, or year. Be prepared for some awkward silence but hold out until one person on your team is brave and willing to share their failure first. Then, be ready to share yours too. This is an easy but important trust-building activity for teams. 

2. Fear of Conflict. Artificial harmony looks like an unwillingness to share a counter opinion at a team meeting or in a 1:1. On the contrary, having a healthy debate and then a willingness to pick a direction and the whole team gets on board. How can you cultivate healthy conflict? First, practice having conflict on your team and then recognize teammates who willingly debate or offer a counter perspective. In your next team meeting practice conflict by debating first a fictitious situation such as which ice cream flavor is the best, pitting people/teams against each other. Other ideas are local favorite restaurants, and coffee shops (Starbucks vs. Dunkin, etc.). Then, practice with a real-life situation that you preselect. This type of debate is invaluable for the team. Regular practice will help the team get better and be more productive when real situations come up, and passionate debate is imperative to success. 

3. Lack of Commitment. When making a decision as a team, silence is not agreement. Leaders need to be careful not to accept silence as agreement. Silence will provide surface-level agreement, and then team members will grumble in the hallway after they have left the meeting. Instead, encourage an active dialog before making a decision. People need to weigh in to be bought into a decision or concept. Brene Brown Ph.D. is an American research professor, lecturer, author, and incredible podcast host. She shares on her podcast that she often holds blind votes in her team meetings to prevent the first person from swaying the others and creating a popular opinion. Also, that prevents the leader's opinion from unfairly influencing others. A blind sticky note vote on which direction you’ll be going on a decision is not a bad idea, even on Zoom.  

4. Avoidance of Accountability. This goes both ways, managers sometimes fail to be accountable to their team members, and team members sometimes fail to be accountable as well. In 1:1 meetings, are you asking for deadlines from your team members and then holding them to it? When can I expect to have that report in my inbox? Get a date and follow-up if the report is not done on time. At the same time, managers sometimes fail to follow through on their commitments; is anyone behind on quarterly or annual reviews? Make a point to get good at accountability by setting reminders, tracking deadlines, and bravely following up if things slide. Good management hygiene is a strong indicator of great leadership. 

5. Inattention to Results. Team results have to come before the individual or personal outcomes. While one salesperson could be having record sales, the production team could be swamped as a result, causing the brand to falter. The whole team has to work together and be focused on overall results, not simply individual results. 

Next steps?

After reading this identify the top 1-2 dysfunctions, your team may need to cultivate and begin implementing a plan to develop skills in this area. 

Building Strong Teams - Training Opportunity:

Want to cultivate your skills of Building a Strong Team? Sign-up for the training series Building Strong Teams. This four-part training series will help leaders develop competencies to cultivate a strong team. Apply here.

Dearest Clients, Readers, and those just passing by,

The last few months in small business HR have been fast-paced in terms of changing workplace dynamics and a huge, HUGE, growth mindset around racial equality.  Collectively we have a tremendous amount to learn. As a consultant, entrepreneur, and mom I am learning just as fast as I can. 

If you're like most of my small business clients you believe in and support the Black Lives Matter movement and seek to find racial equality in your workplace but feel paralyzed about how you and your small business can or should support, react, be an ally to, and advocate. I've navigated these conversations with several clients and one thing that is abundantly clear is that doing nothing, being a late adopter is not an option. I think that the sky's the limit in terms of growth and that this is not a one-time, trendy fix. Having a growth mindset is imperative for small businesses. Here are five steps small businesses can do to support racial equality in the workplace.

1. Communicate to your team members and perhaps even your clients your stance on racial equality in the workplace. Here are examples from Barre3, Ben and Jerry’s, and Chipotle.

2. Adopt a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy that will create cultural shifts to ensure equality for all in your workplace. Evaluate your workplace policies and practices and critique your unconscious bias. Specifically look for opportunities to improve in the areas of recruitment, training, professional development, employee relations, performance management. Perhaps develop a committee of teammates to help provide insights and reduce unconscious bias during your evaluation. MacArthur Foundation has a stellar example of their DEI policy and work.  

3. Invest in training for your workplace. Franklin Covey has a solid resource offered on-demand on Unconscious Bias. Note; I have no affiliation with Franklin Covey, I simply admire their work and this program. 

4. Seek feedback from your workplace. Allowing your workforce to provide feedback to you anonymously will help you understand opportunities for improvement and allows for the individual teammates to feel protected. Resources that may be helpful include; ThoughtExchange, Officevibe, TinyPulse (again, no affiliation).

5. Don’t be silent. Most likely your workforce is waiting to hear your response to the unveiling of racial inequality in the United States. Your silence speaks volumes. Take a proactive, thoughtful approach by communicating the value that each of your team members brings to the workplace (past, present, and future) regardless of their race, gender, LGBTQ+ status. Communicating your stance is crucial to creating equality, and a sense of belonging, for all people in your workplace.

We all have work to do in the areas of bias and workplace equality whether you’re a beginner or you have been studying this for years EVERY ONE OF US IS LEARNING. Coming at this with a growth mindset, even a beginner growth mindset, is fantastic. This article from Lattice gives examples of how bias exists in recruiting, promotion, and even simply listening to ideas: How to Reduce Unconscious Bias at Work. You may also want to watch this TedTalk that has a great exercise at the beginning that highlights some of our biases. Both of these free resources would be appropriate to share with your leadership team and even your workforce as you begin to approach educating and unraveling unconscious bias in your small business.

What obstacles have you encountered in your workplace? I feel strongly that the obstacles are our greatest opportunities. Change is happening at lightning speed and it’s the best time in my career for our work cultures to grow.

Also, what ideas have you implemented, or has your workplace implemented that feel like a step in the right direction?

I look forward to hearing from you about your thoughts, comments, or questions.

Humbly learning with each of you.

Amy McGeachy