The One & Only Employee Feedback Framework You Will Ever Need

4 dialogue-starters for more productive feedback conversations.

We’ve all been told at some point in our careers that “feedback is a gift.” While that may be true, many leaders struggle with how to give their teams the gift of feedback in a way that will resonate and inspire.

Too delicate of a message, and you run the risk of that person not bothering to unwrap your gift at all. Too harsh, and you might see the recipient of your hastily wrapped gift completely shutdown right before your eyes.

Anticipating the extremes of these reactions is enough to make some leaders avoid giving feedback entirely.

But giving feedback doesn’t have to be something you dread doing. There is a little known but highly effective way to give feedback to your team that you can master by the time you finish this reading article called “Brag, Worry, Wonder, Bet” (BWWB).

Steve King is the former Executive Director of the Center for Professional and Executive Development for the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In his book, “Brag, Worry, Wonder, Bet: A Manager’s Guide to Giving Feedback,” he shares the specifics of the BWWB framework.

The framework itself is simple. It outlines 4 dialogue-starters for any type of feedback you might need to give a team member. These can be used in conjunction with one another or as stand-alone statements.

The dialogue starters are:

“When I brag about you, I brag about…”

“When I worry about you, I worry about…”

“When I wonder about you, I wonder about…”

“If I were going to bet on you, I’d bet on…”

Here’s how you can use each of them to deliver feedback to your team:

Brag

“Brags are about the things that are going well and that you want to reinforce,” King says.

Do you remember being a kid and overhearing your parents bragging about you to someone else? It felt good, right? At a minimum, it provided clarity on what they liked about you or what you had accomplished.

King shares that the same is true in the workplace.

“People like to hear good things about their work. They like to know what they are doing is appreciated. They like positive feedback.” He goes on to say, “It seems that deep inside, most of us like to be bragged about — even at work.”

• An example of a brag could be, “Kyle, when I brag about you, I brag about how you beat every one of your sales targets this year.”
• Kyle sees that his hard work is recognized and genuinely appreciated, and he will want to continue to do it. He also feels warm and fuzzy inside.

Worry

King shares that “worries are about the things that are not going well and you want to address, improve, and remedy.”

These are the tougher conversations — the conversations that many leaders would prefer to shy away from. But, our teams have no chance of improving if we never tell them what they need to improve on. As a leader, giving this kind of feedback is also in your job description, so skipping it is not an option.

The key to giving tough feedback is to do it with empathy for the individual and, in doing so, convey that you are there to support him/her in getting to a better place.

In King’s words, “When we worry about someone, it is because we care. And when we express this worry out loud, it is a gesture of caring.”

• An example of a worry could be, “Kyle, I worry about your ability to adjust your management style to suit each of your direct reports.”
• Kyle might confirm that he is struggling with how to do that, or he might ask you to share what you observed that led to your concern. Either way, you have entered into a productive coaching dialogue.

Wonder

“Wonders are curiosities about things that may impact performance, but you are not sure,” according to King.

The trick to an effective wonder is its neutrality. A wonder statement kickstarts a conversation around something you are seeking to understand further and leads you towards uncovering an answer to said curiosity.

• An example of a wonder could be, “Kyle, I wonder if there’s a different way to present your findings to the executives.”
• Kyle might respond by saying, “Yes, I thought about that. These are the approaches I considered and why I didn’t go with them…” This allows you to better understand Kyle’s thought process and coach him accordingly.

Bet

Finally, King explains bets as “predictions of what could happen in the future.” According to King, the best way to use a bet is to spur a career development conversation.

“People are interested in their future… and they are generally interested in what others think about their future possibilities and potential in the workplace.”

• An example of a bet could be, “Kyle, if I were going to bet on you, I would bet that you could be my successor within the next year.”
• Kyle might respond by asking you to share more about why you feel that way, or he might share that he’s been thinking about the same thing. And, just like that — you have initiated a robust career development conversation!
• You might even find yourself using brags, worries, and/or wonders along the way as you explore what Kyle can do to prepare himself further in the next 12 months.

King equates having a productive feedback session to listening to a memorable song.

“The songs that really got my attention were those with some type of musical hook: a catchy little musical phrase that was memorable.

I realized pretty quickly that learning was like music.

The best learning had these little hooks in it — something that drew the learner to the content being delivered or the skill being developed.”

So perhaps giving feedback is more like a song than a gift, and “Brag, Worry, Wonder, Bet” is the hook that draws your team members in over and over again.

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