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Lay the groundwork
What a lot of leaders deal with is how to give difficult feedback, and I understand it is difficult. And you want to be able to give difficult feedback and adjust to people and actually have them change their behavior without having them feel demotivated. It’s a heavy lift.
The truth is that if you want to give effective, constructive feedback, it starts way before the feedback, with all the things that relate to psychological safety. It’s about praise. It’s about positive attention – all those things before you approach and have a candid conversation to give someone constructive feedback. So, then when you approach constructive feedback, that person already relates to you as an ally. They know that you have good intent and that you want them to be successful. So, that’s why you’re giving the difficult feedback, the constructive feedback.
So for example, maybe someone in your organization is a great performer and needs to build their strategic thinking. I would look at that as an opportunity for you to give that difficult feedback, uncomfortable feedback, that’s going to help make them better. And here’s the way to think about that. The way to think about that is, “Listen, you do a great job at your job. I know that you want to be an excellent professional and I know that you want to advance in your career. One thing you’ll need to do to be able to achieve that is to get better at strategic thinking. And, what that means, in this case, is to be able to kind of look at things that are coming down the pike and think about things that we need to do now to address the more macro environment. So, I’d love for you to think about that. Maybe even to read a couple of books or take a course or two or have some conversations with folks around here who are super strategic. And then why don’t we talk again in like a month or two months so I can hear what your thoughts are about how you’ll improve. And then we can create a plan for you so that at the end of this year you’re going to be really great at this skill and be positioned to be an even better executive than you are now.
Now, that sounds like something that someone would get a handle on. It’s very motivating for someone to realize that their manager is taking an interest in them because they know they want to get better. They want to improve. And that’s the way you want to think about difficult feedback or constructive feedback. It’s really about helping someone be their best and unlocking their potential. And the truth is that if you don’t tell them, they’ll go on and on and on in their careers, and nobody will ever tell them. And then 20 years will go by, and they will never realize that they could have been doing much better, and they could have achieved a lot more if only someone had told them.
Get comfortable with uncomfortable emotions
So, as a leader, sometimes you might shy away from giving feedback because you’ve had bad experiences in the past where someone is getting defensive with you, all the time defensive, or even if someone gets teary. So, I really understand that. And first of all, I want to really encourage you to know that emotions happen in the workplace and it’s okay. It doesn’t mean that the person is damaged forever. That person is probably stronger than you realize. You can handle this situation, and they can handle it too.
You can just say, “Listen, I want to remind you that I’m on your side. I am telling you all this because I wanna help you get better at your job — not to harm you, not to upset you, not to insult you. And so I want to make sure that you’re taking it in that spirit.”
The second thing you can do is you can say, “You know what? I can see that you’re upset. It might be a good idea to stop the conversation right now, and we can pick it up in a couple of days once you’ve had a chance to think about it.” And when you come from that angle, even if they do get teary or they do get defensive, you’re still going to stay on the right page and ultimately help steer them to where they need to go.
Master the COIN Model
When you’re giving feedback to your people, I want to introduce you to the COIN model. Now, the COIN model is helpful to you because when you’re giving feedback you’re trying to gain currency with your people. So, it’s C-O-I-N.
C means context. That means, what’s going on in the meeting or in a certain situation. That’s context.
O is for observable facts. You crossed your arms and looked down. That’s an observable fact.
I is the impact. So, the impact is that perhaps when you crossed your arms and looked down, everybody stopped talking and maybe shut down, and the meeting kind of lost a lot of its dynamism.
And so N is next step. So, therefore, what do you want to do in the future? Or how should we handle this situation in the future?
So the overall COIN model might be in the meeting (context). You crossed your arms and looked down (observable fact). The impact was that everybody around us shut down and normally was talking anymore. And the next step is, so, how can I help you be more comfortable when challenging things to happen in a meeting so that you stay engaged and we’re able to continue having a good discussion even about difficult things? That’s the COIN model. And if you use it, you’ll be a master at giving feedback.