I’d like to improve the feedback system in my team. Currently, the team only receives constructive or proactive feedback from me, usually in the form of a “shit sandwich” – one negative note wrapped by two positives. I package up feedback from the team and myself, so there’s also no direct feedback line between my team members. I know we could do more to build a feedback protocol, but I have some concerns. 

How do I know feedback won’t demoralize the team, or if will they even accept and act on it? 

— Iya

Hi Iya,

Creating an open flow of feedback, where you don’t need to guide every conversation, can be difficult in many organizations. Folks hold back for the very reasons you’ve mentioned. They’re afraid they could say something off-putting, something demoralizing, something the other person might not take well. These fears are usually more about perception than reality, as most people don't have negative experiences of being on the receiving end of feedback.

The open flow of feedback is a key marker of healthy company culture. If feedback isn’t flowing freely across all levels of an organization, issues can arise. Folks don’t know where they stand with their work and their career progression, while code may get shipped to production with potentially fatal bugs. Without feedback, proposals, processes, and projects progress unchallenged. People get frustrated.

Delivering bad news as a leader means taking on weight for your team. You spare them from uncomfortable exchanges or confrontations. However, it’s your responsibility that your feedback doesn’t tip the recipient into a spiral of frustration or overwhelm.

If feedback shuts the conversation down, it can't be questioned or explored further. If this happens, it can’t be expanded upon, so there’s no room to understand actions or impact. 

What does a healthy flow of feedback look like for you?

Spend some time thinking about what an ideal feedback flow looks like in your team. Here are some questions you can use to build out the end process: 

• What feedback would be most valuable to your team? Think about this from your perspective and theirs. Ask your team if they have specific areas they’d like feedback on? What would that feedback need to look like to be helpful to them?
• What are reasonable timeframes and places to provide feedback? Should feedback be given on a personal level, in a performance review, in the moment, in meetings with others present, or in private?

Meaningful feedback could look like many things, but it should fulfill one or more of these criteria.

• It comes from a place of support, of genuinely wanting to help the other person.
• It’s devoid of emotions and instead focuses on actions and their impact.
• It’s tied to specific situations and their outcomes rather than being generic.
• It offers concrete advice on what could be done differently to make things better.
• It’s given within a reasonable time frame, ideally not months after the fact.

Reflecting on what system you have in place now, ask yourself how much you think you’re fulfilling this criteria. Moving forward, what needs to change to incorporate them into your feedback prose? Think beyond common frameworks like start/stop/continue which mostly yield unactionable feedback. These approaches are too broad and don’t encourage the specific, meaningful feedback needed for growth.

What’s keeping your team from giving feedback?

There may be several reasons your team isn't giving meaningful feedback to each other, and it starts with examining your role. Thinking about how this unhealthy feedback loop came about will help you understand the current circumstances and needs of your team.

• What is holding back your team right now? Consider why you are at the center of the feedback cycle. What barriers might be in place that stops folks from giving each other feedback directly? Are they worried about how their feedback is taken? Do they not know how to provide meaningful feedback?
• What may demotivate your team from receiving feedback? Is the feedback currently phrased in ways that you think are hurtful or not actionable? Is it too personal? Does it actually do what you think it does, or are folks okay with getting feedback pointing out something that could be improved? Reflecting on this, together with your team, should help you uncover whether the fears you have about their reactions are real or imagined.
• Are they giving you open feedback? If you would like them to give feedback to each other, they should also be able to give it to you. There are extra hurdles they need to overcome when giving feedback to their boss, like the fear of getting fired, their boss getting angry at them, or that they’ll be penalized in the future.

These questions are just as important for your team as they are for you. On your own, you can only guess what might hold them back. By directly asking what’s not working right now, you’ll yield valuable insights and open up honest conversations. You could ask these questions in private or in team meetings. The latter could have the benefit of priming the group to give feedback more out in the open.

Build a feedback muscle within the team

You can help your team build a feedback muscle using specific questions. For example, say you’re looking for feedback for yourself. You want to remove the barrier of providing feedback to the boss. Ask them questions like:

1. What are three things I’m doing that are blocking the team? This explicitly asks for things you may be messing up on. 
2. How would you describe my leadership style? Framing questions using “what” and “how” avoids yes/no answers. 
3. If you were in my position, how would you advise me to improve the feedback flow within the team? By asking them to put themselves in your shoes, you build empathy.
4. What am I already doing that’s setting the team up for success? This will help you understand things that are already working well. 

Use these as your baseline questions and adjust them based on what specific areas you or your team members are seeking to improve. Or use them to ask for feedback on code, documents, or any kind of written proposal.

Success is incremental 

One last thing to keep in mind is that you’ll have more success with smaller changes rather than imposing an entirely new and all-encompassing feedback process. It’s better to find one area that you want to improve and start there, experimenting and tinkering to figure out what works. That way, you ease your team into new changes. 

Along the way, you will also come to understand more and more about how your team ticks, making adjustments where necessary.

With this toolkit in your belt, your team may no longer need to rely on you to handle feedback alone. They'll be better equipped to manage challenges independently, reducing the burden on you as their leader.