The Most Powerful Feedback
May 15, 2006
Judy lives one block from my house. For nearly ten years, I have walked by her house, played with my children in the park across the street from her driveway, and even occasionally greeted her in passing. But until recently, Judy spooked me a little. She is getting pretty elderly and is confined to a motorized wheelchair. She has a small white dog that yaps at us incessantly when we walk by. And she can be, shall we say, gruff.
Thanks to my wife, my view changed over the last year. She started to get to know Judy and even organized a bunch of us to help do Judy’s autumn lawn work last October. Though I don’t see Judy very often, I hear about her quite regularly.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking home with my from his soccer practice and passed Judy out in her driveway. I greeted her briefly, exchanging a few of the pleasantries that neighbors share. I thought nothing of it.
The next day, my wife casually mentioned that Judy had called her on the phone. “She said that you are the nicest man she knows and she just loves to see you.”
A couple of days later, I was walking past Judy’s house again and those words rang in my ears. Instead of dreading the thought of seeing her, I paused for few moments, trying to see if she was behind the glare of her darkened windows. One sentence from my wife had completely changed how I looked at myself. Now I wasn’t the spooked-out neighbor looking for a way to politely avoid contact with the grumpy old lady. I was the nicest man in the world looking for an opportunity to bestow more “niceness” on my approving neighbor.
This is the power of positive feedback. Not only does it reinforce positive behavior - it actually creates positive behavior. When someone says something good about us, we want to live up to those words. Beyond that, it changes the relationships involved as well. John Gottman, one of the most renowned relationship researchers of our time, notes that the proportion of positive to negative feedback has a dramatic effect on the quality of relationships. His studies say that we need a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative feedback to keep the relationship open and constructive.
What does this say to those of us coaching professionals? Once we get ourselves in position to provide feedback to a colleague, we need to think carefully about what sort of feedback will get the results we want. If my experience with Judy and John Gottman’s research tells us anything, it should be that the feedback should be positive more often than negative and it should reinforce the kind of behavior that we hope to multiply.
Why is this difficult for so many of us? For good reasons: We want to be genuine, not just stroke people. That’s good. No one likes to be manipulated (and that’s what stroking’s all about). But can’t we give positive, true feedback? We don’t want to coddle people. We need to keep the bar high. That’s also noble. Nothing sucks the life from a professional group more than mediocrity. But can’t we acknowledge steps in the right direction while still holding up high standards?
Get In Position
May 4, 2006
As a young professional, I got very lucky. My first manager was perhaps the most natural coach I have ever met. Most of anything good I’ve achieved I owe to him - he gave me opportunities, believed in my ability far more than I did, and spent time with me. He also gave me a timeless piece of wisdom about coaching people: “Feedback,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eye, “is the breakfast of champions.” My own work (and plenty of academic research) bears this out. More of my clients and colleagues hunger for useful feedback than any other kind of assistance.
Sadly, most coaches are in no position to give it.
Say you have agreed to coach a professional. You have built credibility, created comfort and trust, put yourself squarely on their agenda, and gotten focused on where you can add significant value and expertise to that agenda. Beautiful. You’ve done an important bit, but probably the easiest bit as well. Nearly anything you do now will require you to actually see this professional in action to provide anything of value.
For illustration’s sake, let’s say the professional wants help improving their presentation skills with key clients or colleagues. They’re smart enough, but they have a sense that they aren’t as persuasive and clear as they need to be if they want to achieve their goals. Maybe you sense this too, either by intuition or by word in the grapevine. But for you to really help this professional to move to the next level, gut feeling and gossip just won’t cut it.
Instead, you will have to go to the hard work of figuring out a way to get into an observing position in this professional’s life. In this case, you will have to find some way to be present during Moments of Truth - those critical times in the professional’s daily/weekly/monthly life where the skill is on display for all to see. In our imaginary case, that may mean finding (or even inventing) reasons for you to be present at a key client presentation. It may mean explaining to some colleagues that you’re trying to help this professional, so you want to give them the chance to present at a particular staff meeting and you want to attend.
This can be complicated. It may cost you money or (God forbid) time. But this is coaching we’re talking about - it’s not cheap. It’s a long-term investment in the most precious commodity your organization has - its rising professionals. Yes, long-term investment is counter-cultural. And yes, a pattern of long-term investment usually pays off handsomely.
But ask yourself, if you don’t get yourself in position to observe your colleague in action, how can you expect to give them anything resembling useful feedback? And without that food, it’s hard to breed a champion. Just ask my first boss!
I’m curious. What do others find challenging about positioning oneself to give feedback?