The ability to give and receive constructive feedback is a special kind of communication. And also – a good opportunity to understand your mistakes and help the interlocutor to see his “points of growth”. In the book “Emotional Intelligence in Complex Communications” a separate chapter is devoted to feedback. We have selected the main theses from it.
Emotional intelligence in complex communications
All of you have probably heard the well-known formula for feedback: first talk about what was done effectively, then give recommendations on what can be improved, added, changed. In the western culture of management it is called a sandwich rule: praise, scold, praise again.
However, many people make mistakes in this formula. The most common is criticism. From simply pointing out mistakes one supposedly learns from (“You should have done it wrong here. You’re wrong!”) to outright insults.
Why do we most often give feedback in the form of criticism? First of all, because we are at the mercy of our emotions.
We think that we are driven by good motives: that the person will improve, that the process will improve, that the situation will change. But in fact we just pour accumulated irritation.
The COC formula
There are more effective ways of giving feedback. Here is what formula the authors of the book “Emotional Intelligence in Complex Communications” Sergey Shabanov and Alena Aleshina propose
:
Pros
By
pros
,
we mean what was done well, specifically effective action, not just praise
.
Let’s understand the difference here. Praise implies a positive appraisal of the individual. This is exactly why the “sandwich rule” doesn’t work, when a person is told something like, “Actually, you did great, but…” These are general words – certainly nice, but from which it is impossible to draw a conclusion for the future.
Pros are actions that make sense to repeat in the next similar communication.
Pros should be described as specifically as possible. Compare,
”
The employee conducted the commencement effectively, had great interactions with people
…
” and
”
The employee maintained eye contact with the entire audience, asked accurate questions to the audience, joked appropriately, and responded to the audience’s lines.”
Such wording helps the person understand what he or she can do next time to perform as effectively. Many people are not sufficiently aware of their strengths. It often happens that a person does something on automatic or by accident. Information from you about this will allow him to use his strengths more consciously.
Deltas
In the second part of the feedback it is common to talk about disadvantages. However, Sergei Shabanov and Alena Aleshina do not recommend doing this at all.
Why?
- First, the information is unpleasant to the person you are talking to. It is likely to cause anxiety and irritation and in no way motivates them to change something.
- Second, information about mistakes reinforces behavior we don’t want because it tells us what not to do. “Don’t rock on the chair,” the teacher says to the student in first grade, which only reinforces his desire to keep rocking.
If we really want the person to change something in his actions, it is important to offer him an alternative, something worth doing.
These are the deltas, the very clear actions that, in our opinion, can be effective.
How do we formulate information about “areas of growth,” about what can be improved?
- Answer yourself the questions: what should the person change the next time they do a task? What could be added? What could be improved and how specifically? What would help him complete the task faster (with fewer resources)?
- Be specific. Instead of “Please, next time, fix it somehow” → say, “Please, next time, start your email to the client with the word ‘hello.'”
- Avoid not only the particle “not” but also its hidden synonyms – words like “stop”, “stop”, “leave”, “finish”, “quit”.
Timely and on-demand
There are a few more important nuances of constructive feedback
.
1. Timeliness
It is desirable that we talk about some events that happened not so long ago. There is no point in remembering, “Three years ago you did this…” That said, if you’re giving feedback about some emotionally significant events, it’s worth taking some time for the participants to come to a more balanced emotional state.
2. On demand
Better yet, have the person ask you themselves, “How was it?” Be prepared for the fact that any, even constructive feedback without asking can be irritating.
What’s surprising is that sometimes people like to make inquiries about their disadvantages. But you don’t have to tell them about them, even if they ask for them themselves. Only pluses and only deltas!
3. Pros > delta.
Constructive feedback contains more information about the pluses than the “growth areas.”
One of the creators of NLP Frank Puselik says that in companies with a very good level of management and the highest efficiency the following rule is adopted: the ratio of pluses to deltas given to the employee is nine to one. This idea is confirmed by quite a few studies on the ratio of positive to negative feedback. Well known, for example, is the so-called Losada coefficient, which says that the pluses in feedback between colleagues should be at least 2.9 times greater than the minuses. Otherwise, the relationship worsens.
Based on the book “Emotional Intelligence in Complex Communications
”
Cover photo from here
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