How to Give More Meaningful Feedback

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Last week I had the privilege of training an incredible organization on “Creating a Feedback Culture” alongside my friend and fellow Novus Global coach Kristin Frade. There is a lot of discussion on the topic of feedback out there, and most of it is trash.

Well, ok that’s not quite fair. It’s not trash. But in my experience, it’s not very effective. If it were, organizations everywhere would be brilliant at feedback. A recent Gallup study showed that 77% of senior leaders and team managers think they are doing an effective job at feedback, but 88% of employees say they aren’t. Employees simply aren’t pickup up what leaders are putting down.

There are likely many reason for this, but there is one underlying flaw in most feedback that I believe to be the biggest culprit. The best feedback model I’ve ever seen and used in my own leadership comes from the coaches at Novus Global (yeah I’m biased — AND it works, trust me). The core principle of our feedback model is that feedback is most effective when it is aligned to the person’s vision. Something we say around the firm all the time is “feedback not connected to a person’s vision is just your opinion.”

Have you ever received feedback from someone that simply didn’t land? Or maybe you walked away from the conversation feeling really misunderstood? Think also about times when you’ve given feedback, maybe to someone on your team, and they were defensive, resistant, or even checked out?

My guess is that in these scenarios, the feedback was more connected to the feedback-giver’s vision as opposed to the receiver’s vision. We cover this topic in our firm’s book, Beyond High Performance. One of the things Jason says in Chapter 8 that really sticks out to me is:

Whenever we do a training on feedback, we inevitably get the question (and this happened last week also), “what if I don’t know their vision?” Its a great questions with a very simple answer: ask them.

I invite you to give it a try this week. Ask someone on your team that you have feedback for about what their vision is. What’s their vision for their career? For how they want to be seen at work? For how they want to be showing up as a member of the team? Then align your feedback in a way that helps them get from where they are to where they say they want to go.

Learning to give more meaningful feedback will help you become a more meaningful leader.

A Question to Leave You With…

Who in your world could be powerfully served with feedback you have for them? Are you committed to sharing that feedback with them, aligned to their vision?

Go out and lead meaningfully friends.

Trevor

PS - If you found this valuable in any way, I have two requests. One, would you reply and let me know? I’d love to hear from you. Second, would you consider forwarding this to a friend or colleague who might also be eager to grow as a leader? I would be honored to be trusted with your people and promise to serve them as powerfully as I intend on serving you.

If you’re ready to dig in some more, here are a few ways you can grow meaningfully as a leader:

1. Beyond High Performance is out! Grab your copy today and learn how the best get better.

2. Have you ever considered hiring a coach? Click here to schedule a no-cost, 15-minute discovery call with me where we’ll explore how coaching might just be the greatest next step for your growth.

3. Check out the latest episode of the Beyond High Performance podcast from my fellow coaches at Novus Global.

4. Want to learn what motivates you? Check out our free 5i Assessment to find out!