How to Give Feedback

There were several different threads connected with giving feedback recently. Maybe that’s because we have evaluation meetings time now and I’m a bit more focused on the subject than usually.

Esther Derby wrote a nice piece about giving feedback. When I was reading an article my first feeling about the sentence “It [feedback] also means no praise” was “hey, what the heck is she talking about?” I imagined me in a role of one of those, who give Esther those funny looks when she tells the sentence. But, after the second thought, there's a bit of truth in Esther’s opinion: hard facts make bigger difference than compliments.

Nevertheless the main thing Esther points, and I don’t agree with, is that praise is a form of manipulation and it actually hurts the feedback-getter. I definitely wouldn’t go so far. When I’m evaluated I want to know if I’m acting well or not. That’s the general view, which can hardly be translated into detailed analysis of particular actions. I can receive lots of detailed information and I still can have twisted picture of my performance. E.g. receiving information about things I do wrong can change my view on my performance, which is generally rather good in the eyes of my boss. Big picture is important even if it’s shown in words of praise.

That’s the thing Seth Godin points in his excellent article about feedback: “If you have something nice to say, please say it.” That would be “you excel in development” after counting a long list of minor issues connected with general performance. Of course Seth also mentions that feedback is not about giving opinion, but about giving analysis. It’s indeed constructive to hear “You should improve your team-work, because it takes much more time for newbie to learn how to use your code than it would if you gave him a hand and share some of your knowledge. We lose time and money as a team, so you lose it also as its part.” It wouldn’t be clever to replace that feedback with simple “Your team-work is a piece of crap. No points here.”

Another thing connected with the subject was my own evaluation meeting with my boss. When talking about feedback that was very successful meeting. I received a list of thing I should work on (or keep working on). I received a big picture of my performance. I had a chance to describe my point of view. That’s the thing neither Esther nor Seth mentioned about: feedback is double-edged weapon. Not only the way feedback is sent is important, but also the way it is received and answered. When answer for your constructive analysis is reluctance it’s the feedback for you. Of course being a boss resigning from giving feedback isn’t an option, but at least you know it won’t be an easy task after this kind of answer.

Finally a sentence I heard from my wife yesterday: “I’ll give you feedback you’ll remember until the end of the days”. And a question – was it good feedback or not?