On Giving Feedback - Day 15

I dated a girl once who was the epitome of a boss lady. She challenged me in ways I didn’t expect: both by teaching me new things and also pushing me to defend my thoughts & beliefs. To be honest it was irritating at times, but in reflection I learned a lot. One of those things was on giving feedback.

I always ask new clients if I have permission to coach them before we start working together. It’s been a great way to get them open to feedback. Another way it could be phrased when in conversation with anyone is: can I give you some feedback? This is powerful because it’s giving people a choice. Rather than what most people do and project unsolicited feedback on others. It also takes out the element of surprise, they can brace themselves internally for what’s coming. Additionally it helps people realize it’s feedback so they can make changes if they decide.

I learned this tactic from the girl I was seeing, but she took it to another level that I didn’t expect. It’s funny how much psychology is at play when coming to giving and receive feedback. And it’s because as humans we don’t like criticism. We don’t like to be wrong. It’s genius really to preface the feedback by asking because it preps people and gives them a feeling of choice in the matter. I know anytime she used this on me I was able to be much more calm and open to what she would say.

But here’s the thing that really surprised me: she would hand out positive feedback as often as she did negative feedback. Sure sometimes it was brutal honesty about something she didn’t like or how I could do something better. And then there were times where we were in conversation and she would pause, ask if she could give feedback, then follow it with something she really liked that I did. It was positive reinforcement, which is so powerful!

This is critical because if they only feedback you give is negative, it’s going to fuck with people. They will be in a negative headspace and want to avoid you. Also when you give good feedback it both empowers them and makes them more motivated to make changes when it comes to the negative stuff.

So start asking permission to give feedback and then be sure to share positive + negative feedback!