Drive a culture of feedback with this Coda resource

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Drive a culture of feedback with this Coda resource

Giving Quality Feedback

TL;DR

Make your feedback specific, actionable, and based in observations of behavior and fact. Include context and the observed impact of the receiver’s actions. This goes for both feedback that is constructive, and feedback that is affirming.

Giving quality, direct feedback is the kind thing to do!

If we don’t give our colleagues information on how they are doing, we might be holding them back. Often we avoid giving tough constructive feedback because we worry it will come off as mean or be taken personally. It’s possible to be direct and kind at the same time. Learn more in this 6-minute video on Kim Scott’s Radical Candor.

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Quality feedback is...

Focused on facts and observations, not assumptions 🔍

What did you see or hear?

Behavioral and specific 🧠

What is the feedback receiver actually doing or accomplishing?

Actionable 🏃

What can the feedback receiver do with this information you are giving them?

Organizationally aligned 🏛️

How is the feedback receiver’s behavior related to our company goals, product and/or values?

Centered on impact 💥

What is the result of the feedback receiver’s behavior?

Timely ⏰

What moments are you reflecting on? Are they recent?

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Mind your bias!

Since feedback comes from our human brains based on our interactions with other humans, it’s ripe ground for unconscious bias, particularly...

“Like me”

We tend to favor people who are like us, providing extra leniency for those in our in-group (like us), and extra scrutiny to those in our out-groups (not like us)

Confirmation bias (aka Halo / horns)

We tend to seek out, consider and recall information that confirms our existing point of view. When we already have an impression about someone, we anchor on information that confirms that impression.

Personality error (aka fundamental attribution error)

When someone does something we attribute it to their personality, not circumstances. Can result in undefined criteria.

Idiosyncratic rater bias

We tend to rate skills that we are not as strong in more highly in others. Conversely, there is the tendency rate others lower in things that we are better at.

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Learn more in this great published doc on biases from Kelsey Chan:

https://coda.io/@kelsey/common-biases-in-performance-evaluations⁠

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How bias shows up in feedback

Pervasiveness of mental shortcuts lead to...

Underrepresented and marginalized groups

more likely to receive vague, unhelpful feedback⁠

(e.g. “they had great year” or “they are hard to work with”)

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Women receiving more feedback⁠

with communal language (e.g. “she’s so helpful”), men receiving feedback with active, agentic language (e.g. “he’s very entrepreneurial”)

Folks from

dominant groups receiving more leniency⁠

and being evaluated on potential; folks from underrepresented and marginalized groups being held to higher standard or face more scrutiny

Putting into action: try the SBIF Framework

SBI(F) is a helpful structure to organize your feedback, ensure its specific and actionable, and avoid vagueness.

Situation

What’s the context of your feedback?

Behavior

What did you observe your feedback receiver doing?

Impact

Why is it important that that the feedback receiver continue or change this behavior?

Follow-up

What could the feedback receiver do differently or do more of?

Situation

Detail

What’s the context of your feedback?

Why?

Supports specificity and timeliness

Scaffolding Language

- At yesterday’s standup...

- Throughout the project sprint...

- In our team Slack channel...

Starter

At yesterday’s standup,

Throughout the project sprint,

In our team Slack channel,

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Examples

Quality Feedback 👍

Vague, not-so-great feedback 👎

Leah provided well-researched data points to Tuesday’s conversation surrounding our upcoming product feature. We were able to make decisions quickly because she made the options, benefits and tradeoffs so clear. Keep doing that, Leah!

When asked about her write-up during this week’s Catalyst, Leah’s answers lacked the amount of depth we needed to make a decision, which made for a less-than-productive meeting. I suggest she prepare for the next meeting by running through potential questions and flushing out the answers. I’d be happy to help do that with her!

Love working with you, Leah!

It’s hard to work with with Leah.

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Some tips

Check out the

Feedback Builder⁠

to gather your elements of SBIF and practice.

Draft your feedback and re-read before you deliver it live or hit send on a message. Is this quality feedback?

Have a trusted colleague give it proofread. Anonymize and share with your manager or someone else for their feedback.

If giving feedback to multiple people, like during a performance cycle, ask yourself before giving: Are you holding each individual to the same standard and putting the same amount of care into your feedback?

Questions

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Add a question

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Questions

Author

Answer

Honestly, just love seeing the SBI(F) framework — it’s been one of my favorite tools as a manager. One important note I’d like to pass along from when I was first introduced to this framework: You may not always be seeing the entire story, so when sharing your observation on a situation/behavior, phrases like “My perception is . . .” or “Something I’ve observed from my vantage point . . .” can be helpful in empowering the feedback recipient to fill in any blind spots.

Love this addition,

@Andrew Stinger

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