MANAGING PEOPLE & TEAMS
Stop Unintentionally Sugarcoating Your Feedback
Research Has Shown That Leaders often Sugarcoat their Feedback — mostly unconsciously
“I think what you did was fine, but it could have been a little better if we did this instead…”
Giving and receiving feedback is commonplace at work. When we finish a project, conventional wisdom tells us to seek out leaders or experts in the company on ways we can improve.
Looking past the inherent flaws of the feedback itself, it gives us many opportunities to learn and grow — it is especially important in our professional life. No matter minor or major, any form of feedback has a huge potential in drastically improving our lives.
Giving feedback is often linked with employee engagement and one study showed that without giving feedback, 40% of employees will be actively disengaged. I5% of employees want more feedback.
The statistics are clear: people want to know how they are doing and without that, they gradually lose motivation to work. Hence, the solution for leaders is to simply ramp up the frequency of their feedback.
Unfortunately, most leaders are terrible at giving feedback, especially negative ones.
Giving feedback is complex: it involves careful planning, strategy, and keen observation. Its effectiveness is predicated on many different factors, from the recipient’s personality traits to the giver’s delivery method.
This is especially so for negative feedback.
In the Greek tragedy play, Antigone, Sophocles gave a famous quote: “No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.”
“No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.”
When things go awry, managers are obligated to deliver negative feedback. Yet, it is often easier said than done: delivering negative feedback requires patience and tact. Managers often scrutinize their diction and delivery method, choosing to be careful with their words and tone.
With all the thought put into it, its effectiveness is often inhibited.
Past studies have shown that managers tend to inflate negative feedback. Even when there is a subpar performance, they are more likely to present it as if it was less severe.
By giving inflated feedback, the recipient can’t learn. That can be potentially damaging to their career — and the company — in the long run.
Why do managers inflate their negative feedback? It is often thought that managers deliberately sugarcoat their feedback. Out of consideration for the recipient’s feelings, tough messages are softened and problems are downplayed. For fear of retaliation, managers are more willing to be evasive than to address the issue straightforwardly.
New research, however, showed that the sugarcoating is often unintentional.
The Illusion of Transparency
Cognitive biases plague our lives, often clouding our judgment and skewing our perspectives. With negative feedback, the illusion of transparency and spotlight effect both come into play: what we think other people think about us is biased and untrue.
We may believe that others will perceive us negatively after giving negative feedback.
When leaders have such beliefs, they fail to consider what the recipient perceives about their feedback. It is ego-centric: leaders focus on what they think rather than what their employees think. Hence, leaders often deliver vague feedback which serves little to no purpose in improving the recipient’s professional life.
For instance, a leader may think: “If I’m too harsh, he might not be as willing to confide about his work problems with me in the future. What our co-worker relationship becomes awkward?”
In most cases, that is false.
In reality, the employee will most likely appreciate the harsh feedback — it also has a higher potential in creating a long-lasting impact on the employee.
Leaders need to be empathetic: rather than focus on how they think the recipient will feel, leaders need to understand and find out how the recipient feels.
However, simply focusing on empathy and self-awareness is not enough. Getting past the cognitive bias is notoriously difficult, which hence requires a multi-pronged approach.
Start Giving Feedback More Frequently
Giving feedback more frequently makes feedback more accurate. Rather than relying on quarter reviews or annual appraisals, leaders can augment them and make it more frequent.
Undeniably, giving negative feedback is an uncomfortable situation. In such a situation, leaders are stressed and thus have less ‘stomach’ to give more in a day. As a result, communication will become unclear.
By being more frequent with giving feedback, leaders can ‘train’ their stress receptors. Doing so allows leaders to normalize such behavior and break the discomfort, and thus improve clarity.
For instance, leaders can choose to give feedback every week within a short 5 to 10-minute session. Leaders can also conduct ongoing training or giving continuous reminders.
The art of giving feedback can only be improved through practice. With repetition, leaders can exercise their ‘feedback muscles’ and thus be more effective with every successive feedback session.
Give Candid Feedback
Though many agree the performance reviews need to be more candid, leaders are still holding themselves back from delivering the truth, even if that means through brutal honesty.
The reality is that giving candid feedback is intensely uncomfortable and potentially anxiety-inducing: leaders worry that their employees will be hurt or damaged by it. At the same time, they want to maintain an amicable relationship with the employee.
Hence, it is easier to pull punches — but research has shown that it makes feedback a lot less effective.
Though the best way to get better at giving candid feedback is to simply give more of it, there are ways for leaders to ease into it:
- Acknowledge the dynamic with the recipient. For instance, leaders can discuss the underlying psychology: candor can be uncomfortable and it might be potentially damaging. Leaders can have conversations about the value of candid feedback. By building awareness around the issue, employees can recognize candor better over time. Thus, leaders will run less risk of ‘hurting’ the recipient.
- Give context and create a silo. While silos may seem inherently bad, it is important to consider the context in giving candid feedback. For instance, developmental feedback should be separated from job-security issues. Feedback targeted at skills is different from topics such as compensation and bonuses. By explicitly dividing the topics, it can free up some emotions as the leader can recognize whether the conversation is personal or work-related.
When leaders can practice being naturally candor with their employees, they will be drastically improved in giving negative feedback as well.
Though many studies and statistics have shown that employees want more negative and candid feedback, it may not be a win-win for all when leaders give it. Leaders have to consider external factors that are beyond their control.
For instance, the culture and society in which the company resides. In countries where communication is more direct (e.g. United States, Australia), candor will be appreciated more, relative to countries where leaders need to be indirect and subtle in their approach (e.g. Japan, China).
Regardless of the country, having more awareness about what can make feedback more effective is important to a manager’s leadership journey. As a tenet of leadership, it can be said that how well a leader delivers feedback is indicative of how effective his/her leadership is.