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ten common mistakes when giving feedback from the center for creative leadership
fast company article give good feedback
McGill and Beatty (in "Action learning: A practitioner's guide", London: Kogan Page, 1994, p. 159-163) provide useful suggestions about giving effective feedback:
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What do I want from a feedback letter?
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- Say it so I can hear it
- Mention effort, as well as changes you see in my behavior over the course of this class
- Some diplomacy!
Further ideas
McGill and Beatty (in "Action learning: A practitioner's guide", London: Kogan Page, 1994, p. 159-163) provide useful suggestions about giving effective feedback:
- Clarity – Be clear about what you want to say.
- Emphasize the positive – This isn't being collusive in the person's dilemma.
- Be specific – Avoid general comments and clarify pronouns such as "it," "that," etc.
- Focus on behavior rather than the person.
- Refer to behavior that can be changed.
- Be descriptive rather than evaluative.
- Own the feedback – Use 'I' statements.
- Generalizations – Notice "all," "never," "always," etc., and ask to get more specificity – often these words are arbitrary limits on behavior.
- Be very careful with advice – People rarely struggle with an issue because of the lack of some specific piece of information; often, the best help is helping the person to come to a better understanding of their issue, how it developed, and how they can identify actions to address the issue more effectively.
(this summary taken from http://www.managementhelp.org/commskls/feedback/feedback.htm)