Feedback 101 (chapter rough draft)

(This is my rough attempt to turn my talk transcript into what could be a chapter of a book. I only need to give like 6-7 more talks like this and then I have a 100 page book! 😭)

On fudgy feedback

Most of what we call feedback isn’t feedback. Compliments aren’t feedback. Praise isn’t feedback. Positive feedback is a thing, and it’s a very powerful thing can talk about in a bit, but it’s not the same as compliments.

Compliments and praise are warm fuzzies. Are warm fuzzies good and valuable, yes! But warm fuzzies are not feedback. They give a sense of belonging and a jolt of confidence but they do not help you grow.

That’s fudgy feedback. It’s soft and sweet and tastes good in the moment but it’s not doing anything for you long term. Compliments and praise are fudgy feedback, not real feedback.

Ever heard the word “paltering”? It means saying something that’s technically true but ignores the important part, so you aren’t lying but you also aren’t saying what you really think. It’s kind of lying by omission.

Say someone named asks you what you thought of their presentation and you say “oh wow, the slides were gorgeous and helpful” but leave out the fact that they said “um” after every word which was really distracting, that’s paltering. Classic fudgy feedback.

Radical candor

Maybe you’ve heard of radical candor?

The idea is that we want to be both challenging directly and caring personally. If you leave out one or both of those then things go downhill.

• Leave out caring personally and you’re in obnoxious aggression.
• Leave out challenging directly and you’re in ruinous empathy.
• Leave ‘em both out and buddy you’re square in manipulative insincerity.

Let’s talk about an example. The easy one is that you spot spinach in someone’s teeth. Here’s what that looks like:

Don’t tell ‘em, because that way everyone else sees it and they look bad, which maybe makes you look a little better. I haven’t seen this much personally, but here’s what I have seen.

Ruinous empathy. It’s the same thing! It’s the same behavior as manipulative insincerity but for a different reason. Here, you’re trying to avoid hurting their feelings and you don’t want to cause any awkwardness. But at the end of the day you’re doing just as much damage as manipulative insincerity. Fudgy feedback.

In obnoxious aggression, you’re speaking up but you’re not doing it in a caring way. In some company cultures, this is surprisingly common.

Radical candor for the win. Have the courage to say the uncomfortable thing now to help them be better in some way later.

What even is feedback?

The purpose of feedback is to PROVIDE INFORMATION THEY CAN USE. Specifically, your perspective about the impact of their behaviors. Those two words are important. BEHAVIORS and IMPACT. We’ll come back to that.

So, going back: what we’re calling feedback usually isn’t that, and that robs people of opportunities to improve. That’s not cool, and we have to do better. People can’t grow if we keep throwing compliments and warm fuzzies at them and calling it feedback. We need to unfudge our feedback if we care about growth.

Because here’s the thing: we all want more and better feedback. Go find me someone who’s complaining about getting TOO MUCH helpful feedback. “Oh woe is me! I’m so overwhelmed with all of this valuable feedback, it’s the worst, I wish people would just let me do a worse job in peace.” No, it doesn’t happen.

What we’re missing

Indulge me for a second. Imagine your job if the people you work with give you their perspective on what you could be doing better, honestly and consistently. Imagine always knowing what people really thought of that meeting you ran or the way you architected that feature or whatever, or how it could have been even better. Think about what that would do for your growth.

And imagine feeling empowered and safe to give your own perspective about them, and it not feeling like a big scary thing – it’s just how we work. It’s our culture, it’s what we do, you don’t even really have to think about it. That sounds pretty great to me.

Root cause analysis

If we’re going to unfudge our feedback, we need to understand the key root causes. And if fudgy feedback is the symptom, then I think there are four possible diagnosis….diagnoses? Yeah that one:

• We’re scared it’ll go badly – maybe it’ll be awkward or they’ll get upset or it’ll hurt our relationship
• For formal peer feedback that their manager sees, we’re scared we’ll hurt their rating or their bonus if we’re honest
• We can’t think of anything they could do better. We don’t know how to give good feedback.

So let’s talk about that first one.

We’re scared it’ll go badly.

What’s really happening here is we’re all being selfish. Let me explain.

Say you work with Chuck. You see things Chuck could do better. If Chuck did those things better, he’d be more effective. But you don’t tell Chuck, because you’re worried it may be awkward for you or that he’ll get upset with you. In other words, you’d rather Chuck stay worse at his job than yourself experience a few seconds of awkwardness? How is that not selfish?

And look, I’m throwing stones from a big old glass house over here. I’m just as selfish as anyone. I hate this crap and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s coming up with excuses for not giving feedback. They just had an off day. It was a fluke. They already know that was a mistake. Whatever. All excuses for continuing to be selfish.

And that’s a natural reaction because it’s a raw deal. Feedback is a one sided transaction and it’s not fair. Giving feedback is a cost to the giver and a benefit to the receiver. When you give someone feedback, they get the rewards of it (in long term growth) while you have to deal with the consequences of it (in short term discomfort and worry and awkwardness). That’s not fair.

But that’s why it’s a gift. Feedback is a gift. It’s the same thing as sending a scarf to your aunt in Rhode Island for her birthday or whatever. It’s a cost to you and a benefit to your aunt. Feedback is the same way. Of course it’s one sided – it’s a gift you’re giving.

And we’re being selfish by not giving that gift. We are a selfish company right now, and we have to do better.

We’re scared to hurt their performance rating or compensation/bonus.

But what about reflection peer feedback that their manager sees, right? If I give them harsh feedback there, they may get a lower rating and a worse bonus! I can’t be responsible for that!

So you write fudgy compliments instead of real feedback, robbing them of the chance to improve. You butthead.

Never hold back on sharing your true perspective. Don’t lie or palter just because their manager sees it. Radical candor still applies.

Their manager knows that’s all it is: a perspective. It’s one piece of information. They can choose to act on your feedback, discuss it, or dismiss it. Analyzing all of the information and turning it into a well-informed rating is the manager’s job. That’s what they were hired and paid to do. Trust them to do their job. And remember that ratings are going to be scrutinized in calibration meetings by their peer managers too.

Your job when filling out that form isn’t to maximize their bonus. It’s not peer compliments, it’s peer feedback. Your job is to give your true perspective so that they can use it to grow and their manager can use it to coach them. Anyway, believing that your feedback alone is important or compelling enough to change someone’s YEARLY performance rating? Smells a little self-absorbed.

But say by some miracle somehow that does happen. Say only you witnessed something that actually really is that important, and their rating changes because of your feedback (which again, almost definitely won’t happen). But if it did, is that really so bad? Or is that the process working as intended? I dunno who said it but the quote that always comes to mind for me here is “That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.”

We can’t think of anything to say

Bucket number three: we don’t know what to say. Because I mean come on! My team rocks! Everyone is so great! Most of the time I’m not withholding feedback, usually I just don’t have any to give because they’re doing a good job!

People. RAISE. YOUR. EXPECTATIONS. Expect MORE, always expect more. And good lord, STOP rationalizing the status quo.

• So they’re doing good? What would take them into great?
• So they’re doing great? What would take them into absolutely blowing your mind?
• So they’re absolutely blowing your mind? How can they uplevel the rest of the team, so that they aren’t the only ones absolutely blowing your mind?

Always expect more.

Some feedback prompts

I know that’s a little vague, so you can use some prompts to get the old noodle cooking. Think of someone in your team who is all around solid. The kind of person you struggle to write meaningful feedback for. Got someone in mind? Ok now ask yourself:

• If they were up for promotion in six months, what should they change now to get the best chance of getting it? Give them that feedback.
• If you knew you’d be working with them for the next 10 years, what are the things that don’t really bother you now but could build up and be annoying over that time? Give them that feedback.
• Think about the last feature they built or epic they DRI’ed or whatever. What could they have done on it that would have totally blown your mind and made you just flip out? That’s a missed opportunity – give them that feedback.

Then there are the old faithful ones:

Positive feedback:

• What’s something they did that made the team more effective
• What’s something they did that strengthened your relationship with them

Negative feedback:

• What’s something they could have done to make the team more effective
• What’s something they could have done to strengthen your relationship with them

These are all valid questions we can ask ourselves for anyone. We can always raise our expectations higher. Everyone can be better than they are, not matter how awesome they are, and I know we have a lot of awesome people here.

Getting ready

Ok, so let’s say you know what you want to give feedback on. You’ve come up with something and you’ve managed to avoid talking yourself out of it by saying it’s too minor or might have been a fluke or whatever. Nice work! Now comes the hard part – you have to say it.

And that’s bucket number four. We just don’t know how. We don’t feel confident about our ability to do it right, so we don’t do it at all. So let’s fix that. First we’ve gotta get ready.

Before doing ANYTHING, take a vibe check. That’s step 0. Never give feedback when you’re angry or upset or frustrated. You won’t be able to do it justice, and badly delivered feedback can do more harm than good. This is a big deal, don’t screw this up, internalize it. If you’re frustrated, sleep on it or vent to someone or whatever you need to do. If that means the feedback comes later, that’s OK. Late feedback is better than emotional feedback.

So that’s step 0: vibe check.

Step 1 is to ask if you can give them some feedback. If they say no, MOVE ON with your life. You’re done, until they come and say “OK I’m ready now” (if they ever do).

And there’s no judgment here. We should always be safe to say it’s not a good time for feedback. Maybe they’re in the middle of something, maybe they’re stressed about something, maybe they just aren’t in the mood for growth right then. Doesn’t matter. We can’t ever surprise or sneak attack people with things we want them to take seriously and productively.

Good feedback is pokey

Assuming they say yes, the rule of thumb that always sticks with me is that good feedback is POKEY. If someone walks up and pokes you with something, you feel it right away and you know exactly where you got poked. Good feedback is just like that: specific, quick, and hard to not notice or misinterpret.

I’m not saying to hurt people’s feelings! This isn’t a sharp pencil we’re poking them with, it’s the eraser end. Pokey feedback doesn’t mean it should be painful. I’ll say it again, pokey feedback means it should be specific, quick, and hard to not notice or misinterpret. But the goal isn’t to make it hurt.

And you don’t need much! A single sentence, or two max. I like the term “five second feedback.” Good feedback doesn’t need to take more than five seconds to deliver.

What’s the right time?

A side topic here is the question of when. When do I give the feedback? Easy answer.

Immediately. Now. Yesterday. If you get even the slightest whiff that something may eventually feedback worthy, then it’s feedback worthy right now. Remember the prompt about working with this person for 10 years.

And stop worrying so much about things being too minor or waiting until it becomes a bigger issue. Giving quick often feedback about the small things makes it so much more natural and less scary to give feedback about the big things, or even better, prevents the big things from ever becoming big things.

If you’re worried that they’ll over-optimize for whatever minor thing you’re bringing up, then that’s not a reason to give the feedback! Just preface it with that – “this is really minor and I don’t want you to over-optimize for it, but when you blanked then what happened was blank.”

But of course, the caveat here that I mentioned earlier is that if you’re feeling upset or frustrated or otherwise emotional about it, the benefits of waiting outweigh the benefits of giving it immediately.

How should I word it?

So let’s talk about phrasing. We’re getting to the meat here. What do you actually say when you’re giving feedback?

We always give feedback about a specific behavior in past tense, and the impact of that behavior. This is important: we give feedback about specific behaviors in past tense, not about people.

And the failure mode here is talking about patterns. If you say last week you interrupted me three times on that call, great. But if you say you always interrupt me, watch out. That’s a pattern, and patterns get emotionally charged and beg for counter examples. That’s also why I’m going to say the words “past tense” about 20 more times before this talk is over, because past tense prevents that from happening.

The classic framework is SBI – situation, behavior, impact. Say the situation, what they did, and the impact of it, or more specifically your perspective of the impact.

Simple template: when you blanked, what happened was blank.

Another one that I like a lot when we’re talking about internal rather than external impact is: when you blanked, I felt blank because the story in my head was blank.

Here’s an example:

• When I was talking 5 seconds ago (situation)
• and I saw your eyes darting around and I saw you reaching forward to type (behavior)
• then I felt sad because the story in my head is that my brilliant talk isn’t good enough for you to pay attention, and that makes me second guess myself and do a worse job with the rest of the talk. (impact)

Some of y’all may be familiar with Lara Hogan’s feedback equation. That’s basically the same thing except that you add a request onto the end. Observation + impact + request = feedback. So that’s another option, especially if you think you need to specifically lay out what you want them to change.

One last thing here: you have to be super freaking clear. Don’t hint at things. Don’t imply. Say it CLEARLY. Never underestimate people’s ability to not hear you.

Let’s put it all together

If you follow the SBI framework then it’s just a matter of filling in the blank. So let’s try it.

What’s wrong with this feedback? I’m just kidding, this is just name calling. Obviously trash feedback, but I want to use it as a point of reference.

Alright, here’s something that looks a little more like feedback, but it’s really only like two notches above my turd example.

So how could we use SBI to make it better?

Add a situation and make it past tense. Feedback that isn’t past tense should always be a bit of a smell. This makes a general statement instead of talking about specific instance, and because of that, it’s gonna get met with defensiveness and counter-examples, like “that’s not true, I think it’s actually pretty rare that I interrupt you”

Add an impact. Without the impact, they might not realize how harmful it is or in what way. Maybe they just think you’re a little annoyed that you forgot the point you were trying to make, which isn’t really a big deal, when the real impact is that you felt disrespected which flared up your imposter syndrome, so you were scared to put yourself out there for the rest of the day. That’s a bigger deal.

Now we’re getting somewhere. We’re in past tense about a very specific instance of a behavior, we explain the impact from our perspective. This is useful feedback and I for one would be thrilled to receive feedback like this. I’d freak out, it would totally make my day.

Even a robot can do it

See what I mean? Making bad feedback into good feedback with SBI is pretty easy, in fact it’s so easy that a robot could do it and to prove it I made a robot that does it

Or I guess, I told a robot teach itself how to do it or something. AI is weird. This is the Feedback Unfudger. Throw some bad feedback at it and it’ll ask you clarifying questions until it has enough information to make it into useful feedback.

I’m not suggesting you use this or anything like it, but the point I’m trying to make is that it’s not rocket science, it’s simple stuff.

Here’s an example you almost definitely won’t be able to see unless you zoom in.

I said Lisa often interrupts me, so it asked me for a specific instance. I said she did it twice during the brainstorm session yesterday. It asked me what was happening when she interrupted me and what the effect was, so I said I was making design suggestions and it made me feel disrespected and I had trouble focusing on the conversation afterwards. Then it dumps out the final feedback.

See? Simple. Fill in the blank. Situation, behavior, and impact.

But what about positive feedback?

We haven’t talked about positive feedback much, except to say that compliments and praise aren’t it.

So what is it? It’s literally the exact same thing. Situation, behavior, impact. The only difference is that in this case, the impact is a good thing. You want to reinforce that behavior. You want more of it, not less.

So let’s look at an example.

This type of thing should look pretty familiar. It’s first class fudgy feedback, and it’s barely more useful than my turd example from earlier. This is not information they can use. If your goal is to give them warm fuzzies, then OK, fair play. But don’t go calling this feedback.

How could we make it feedback? You already know what I’m going to say.

Include specific, past tense behaviors. What about the brainstorm session went well? The way it’s written, this could even theoretically be harmful because what if they assume the pieces I liked were actually the worst parts, since I didn’t give any information about specific behaviors or impacts.

Add the impact. Without the impact, all they know is that I liked it. That’s very useful. Presumably I liked it because of some good thing that came out of it, so what was that? Be specific about the impact so that they can make decisions based on something more tangible than my personal vibe.

I know this is longer but it’s actually valuable. It points to a specific behavior and says the impact of it. It points out, again in PAST TENSE, an instance of behavior and the positive impact of it. It encourages and reinforces that specific behavior.

You see what I’m getting at here? Specific behaviors. Past tense. Show the impact from your perspective. Because feedback is meant to CHANGE BEHAVIOR, either by asking for more of something good or less of something bad. Good feedback is pokey like that, positive or negative.

And if you miss the warm fuzzies, then throw some fudgy feedback on top of it. Like hey you did an incredible job leading that brain session, especially …and then you say the part that’s actual feedback.

How to receive feedback

Ok we’re nearing the end, but there’s one thing I haven’t talked about it. Stick with me folks because this matters.

The part nobody talks about is that we have to tackle the other side. If we want people to feel comfortable giving us feedback, if we want them to not be scared, then we have to be WORLD CLASS at receiving it. Our reaction to feedback should encourage more feedback in the future. If someone gives you feedback and they don’t leave thinking “wow, that was easy and I feel like I made a difference” then YOU HAVE FAILED at receiving it. Think about, if you were giving someone else the feedback you just got, how would you want them to respond?

And remember, it’s OK to not want feedback right now! Just be clear about that if that’s where you’re at.

So say someone gives you some feedback and it hurts. Say they poked you with the pointy end of the pencil instead of the eraser end. You can feel the defensiveness and frustration rising up. Here’s what you do.

• Take a deep breath and count to five or whatever you need to do to just take a beat.
• Thank them for the feedback and really mean it, because giving it to you was probably scary and took courage. Remember that they’re trying to help you. Don’t make them regret it.
• Then, and this is key: only ask questions. Make zero statements. Your job is to be curious, and if you make statements then it’ll probably be from a place of defensiveness, not curiosity. Think: what’s the curious response to this?
• When you have all the details, thank them again and tell them you promise to take it seriously and use it to grow.
• After that, if you’re still feeling defensive and upset, rage-journal the response you would have given if you were a jerk to get it out of your system. Then sleep on it and the next day, maybe ask trusted peers or your manager.

After all that, you should hopefully be able to decide what you really think about the feedback and how you should act on it, if at all.

Some feedback sucks

And remember, if feedback is a gift then a corollary is that some gifts are bad. And some feedback is bad. Sometimes you get the feedback version of the ugly socks your grandparents gave you when you were six and you have to act thankful but you know you’re just gonna shove em in the back of your dresser and never see them again.

Just because you got the gift doesn’t mean you need to wear it. And all feedback has to be addressed.

So just because we get feedback doesn’t mean we’re automatically responsible for acting on it. But what we ARE responsible for making that decision intentionally and rationally rather than emotionally. And we’re responsible for making sure the giver left that interaction feeling even better about giving us feedback next time.

I’m also not suggesting you need to be a doormat. If someone gives you trash feedback or delivers it without caring personally then feel free to give them feedback about their feedback later, once it’s not raw anymore.

Demand more feedback

And I bet some of y’all are thinking “ok yeah great but I’m not getting any feedback” then what’s worked for me is to demand it.

If you’re feedback starved, Slack someone on your team and say “Hi there! Would you please give me some feedback about how I did on XYZ (or anything else for that matter)? Even just a couple bullet points would be great, as long as at least one is constructive. Thanks so much!” See how that’s different from saying “feedback appreciated!” or “I’d love any feedback you have!”?

When you demand it, they stop feeling like a jerk if they do give you honest feedback, and start feeling like a jerk if they don’t because then they’d be ignoring what you asked them to do.

Stop tolerating this

And on that note of demanding things, I demand that we stop tolerating fudgy feedback. It’s enough already. It’s time to unfudge our feedback. I want 2024 to go down in history as Our Great Unfudgening.

So here’s my passionate plea. Please please please stop putting up with this. I promise to if you promise to. Demand real feedback. Give real feedback. Reward real feedback.

I have one action item for everyone. Set a daily reminder in your calendar or todo list or whatever to give someone positive feedback, every single day, for the next two weeks. I don’t care who it is, I don’t care if it’s over Slack or zoom or wherever. But for the next 10 work days, set a reminder to give unfudged positive feedback to someone every single day. Bonus points if you send it to their manager as well. Just try it and see if you start to build the muscle and see any benefit.

Why positive feedback? Because it’s less scary and it’s also less risky for people who aren’t experienced at giving feedback yet. Start building that muscle, then move onto negative feedback when you’re ready. But that’s all I’m asking for – two weeks. 10 pieces of positive feedback. Try it and DM me and let me know how it goes.

Let’s unfudge our feedback and agree to stop putting up with this.