Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

It’s your job as a manager to build a healthy culture for your team. Part of this culture includes the universal recognition of the need to receive and give feedback in all three directions (up, down, and sideways). Effective managers take the fear out of feedback discussions by normalizing the responsibility for giving/receiving feedback around a common definition, using and teaching a simple model to design quality discussions, and using questions to push the discussion to the future.

Four Steps to Strengthen Your Feedback Culture and Effectiveness

1. Create a Shared View of the Importance of and Expectations for Feedback

Quality feedback starts with managers building a healthy feedback culture across their groups. Spend time with your team members discussing the importance of feedback and why it needs to flow in three directions: up, down, and sideways.

  • Ask your team members to describe how they want to receive feedback from you and each other and discuss the importance of positive intent and authenticity in feedback discussions.
  • Let them know you need and want feedback to grow—and then be a model receiver of feedback.
  • Develop strategies everyone can use when giving or receiving feedback to minimize emotional concerns and focus on behaviors that impact performance.

2. Agree on a Common Definition for Feedback

Feel free to use or adapt mine:

Performance feedback reinforces behaviors that lead to high performance and help individuals and groups change or eliminate behaviors that detract from high performance.

Ideally, work with your team members to craft a definition. And then teach, reinforce, and model it constantly.

3. Learn and Use the BIT-Q™ Format

Every quality feedback discussion has a few basic building blocks essential for a successful outcome. My BIT-Qff™ formula identifies these and serves as an easy mnemonic to help you plan for and engage in a quality discussion.

B=the observed BEHAVIOR. If you didn’t observe the behavior, don’t give feedback. You can discuss comments and observations from others, but don’t stray into the feedback category based on hearsay, or you’ll slide quickly down a slippery slope!

I=the IMPACT of the behavior on performance (or person).

T=answering the question: Is this the right TIME for this feedback?

Qff=Question you ask to shift the focus to the future.

4. The Qff is Where the Magic Happens

Qff=a forward-looking QUESTION to promote a DIALOG. With a nod to Marshall Goldsmith and his concept of feed-forward, the Qff here needs to be a question that opens a dialog and, importantly, shifts the focus to the future. 

One of my favorites guaranteed to defuse tension and move the view to the future is: The next time you encounter this type of situation, what will you do differently to get the outcome you are after?

It often makes sense to lead with: Did you get the results you were after? 

This question gets emphasis off the archeological excavation of the past. Instead of the receiver growing defensive about what happened, you can work together to define the future.

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Art's Signature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join us for one of the most raucous, fun, and challenging professional development events you’ll encounter. In three hours plus a scheduled one-hour follow-up session a few weeks later, you and your cohort members will learn and practice the BITQff™ format. We start in a large group and then break out at least three times to practice the insights. You will leave this session with increased confidence and comfort for even the most difficult conversations.$147 per seat. Register here.

For three or more team members to join, the price is $127 per seat. Reach out to Art to register.