How to Deliver Negative Feedback

Nobody likes negative feedback. I have flashbacks to a college writing professor with a gravelly voice who soberly intoned that my story submission was “uncooked.” Somehow, the way he said it, the word acquired a couple of extra syllables. On occasion the word still drones, slowly, in my head to this day.

But the feedback was motivating, and most people can be moved to start cooking when they know what their mistakes are. Even so, there are right and wrong ways to deliver that bad news. That’s especially important in the association space, where volunteer groups usually operate without compensation, and where poor morale has a way of becoming infectious.

At Harvard Business Review, author and former executive Steve Vamos recently ran through some of the common mistakes that managers make when delivering negative feedback  (opens in a new tab): dodging a tough conversation for an extended period, for instance, or lack of clarity about where somebody is falling short. But the most valuable piece of advice Vamos offers, I think, is to frame negative feedback firmly but with a goal to better understand why somebody (or a whole team) has fallen short.

“Position yourself as a facilitator between the company’s needs and your employee’s needs, capability and performance,” he writes. “You can make an objective and honest observation by saying something like… ‘Your skills are important [to this project]. But I’ve also noticed you’re facing some challenges… Can you tell me what’s been going on from your perspective?”

This framing takes accusation out of the equation—and with it the guarantee of an unhelpful, anxious, and defensive response. It also gives the other person an opportunity to share legitimate concerns that may be complicating the situation. A leader’s goal should be to fix a problem, not to fix a person. That requires having people’s help in understanding the problem’s scope. 

The good news for leaders who are concerned about delivering negative feedback is that studies show it’s welcomed more often than you might think. A 2014 survey from the firm Zenger Folkman found that a majority of employees agree that knowing their mistakes did more to up their performance than praise  (opens in a new tab). Moreover, nearly three-quarters of respondents said “their performance would improve with more frequent and authentic appraisals from managers—even if that meant swallowing difficult news along the way.”

None of that should be interpreted as a call to deliver negative feedback more harshly, or dispense with giving positive feedback. But it should be a reminder that in these assessment conversations, authenticity is important. The failure of authenticity is clear in the association volunteer space, where ASAE research shows there’s a wide disconnect between the percentage of volunteers who feel they’re being effective, and the substantially lower percentage of association staffers who feel those same volunteers are being effective. 

To succeed, team members and teams need a clear picture of what their goals are and how they’re expected to reach them. And leaders need to deliver regular feedback, even if—especially if—people are falling short. But tone and context matter. As Vamos puts it: “How you say something and the words you use to express your feedback and intentions makes all the difference. You can provide the most difficult or harsh feedback in a humane and caring way if you think of it as helping.”

[istock/peepo]