The Art of Giving Feedback with Respect

In the first lesson of our Emerging Leader Development course, Cindy and I stress the importance of developing the self-discipline to address issues as soon as they arise, before emotion takes over and we lose control of a situation. All too often, I’ve seen folks in leadership roles opt not to address a team member who has stepped out of bounds. While I understand that these situations rarely occur at opportune moments, even more folks with leadership responsibility avoid giving feedback than the ones who avoid receiving feedback. The example Terry set for me over the years helped me be very open to both, but I won’t pretend that I’ve always been able to give that feedback in a way it could be received well…

The behavior-based safety model that I trained teams on across North America was based on providing our peers with feedback on the actions they took to avoid the risk of injury and to point out anything they did during the ten minutes we had observed them that could have resulted in them being hurt. This wasn’t focused on how they did or did not comply with safety regulations; our responsibility was to point out, with extreme specificity, where they were exposed to potential for injury and how their behaviors either mitigated or added to the risk in the situation. Since there was no discipline involved in this process, the feedback could be very casual. We hoped to achieve some level of behavioral change that reduced the risk of injury, but our job wasn’t to force that change. Even then, though, one of the most difficult things about training others to perform observations was getting them to a point where they were willing to provide that specific feedback rather than just checking a few boxes on a sheet of paper. Personally, I got very comfortable with it; maybe a bit too comfortable.

I frequently reference my extremely DRIVEN communication style. If you have a deeper understanding of the DISC Model of Human Behavior (and I don’t mean just completing some free assessment online), you’d likely chuckle when you hear me say that there’s no pun intended in my D/IC style blend, but that pun can shine through when I’m under stress and operating in full-on D mode! Before understanding how I was wired and how that impacted the feedback I provided even my superiors was often a bit too DIRECT. I remember being scolded by a plant manager for calling out one of my peers during a conference call with our corporate office. He wasn’t being honest and I called bullshit. I wasn’t wrong, but I also didn’t make much headway since I was the one getting scolded rather than the guy who lied to the big shots. Years later, I had a fairly intense conversation with the owner of a company where he was very happy with the details I provided him with around a specific employment law issue. I hadn’t written the law - hell, I didn’t even agree with the law - but it was still a freaking law. With all the respect I knew how to muster at the time, I told him “if you only wanted someone to agree with everything you say, one of us doesn’t need to be here. Since your last name is on the sign, that would be me. But if you actually want someone who will provide you with information you don’t have, I’ve got your back.” 

In both of those scenarios, I definitely provided feedback. That said, it would have been received much better had I done so more respectfully. For more than a decade, I’ve heard references to and read articles or books about the idea of emotional intelligence. More than anything else, learning the science behind the DISC Model of Human Behavior has served as a foundation for me to actively increase my level of emotional intelligence. While that’s a deeper explanation than I can hash out here and now, I share it to emphasize how much that understanding has helped me learn to deliver feedback with respect. And that’s made a world of difference in how the feedback has been received as well as how relationships are strengthened through the process.

As I write this, I’ve recently had extremely candid conversations with owners of two separate organizations. I care deeply about both and I cherish the relationship I have with each of them. In each case, I was very concerned that the feedback I delivered could come across as criticism or condemnation toward them personally. In both situations, I had seen key members of their teams display behaviors toward others that were not aligned with their respective core organizational values. In talking with each owner, I was very careful to dial back my naturally DIRECT approach, detail how much I cared about them personally and about the reputation of their organization, and explain my concern for the mismatch impacting the public’s perception. In both cases, the message still seemed to sting a bit, but not because of my delivery; the sting came from having to address the issue within their teams.

Understanding my own communication style and using that to increase my emotional intelligence helped me learn the art of giving feedback with respect. Looking back, Terry provided plenty of examples for that too - I just didn’t absorb those as quickly as I should have. The art of giving feedback with respect may even be that thing Jeff Henderson referred to as “Alliance Feedback”! When someone provides that for us, it’s much easier to receive that feedback without losing confidence - and we’ll pick there soon.