As a leader, mastering the art of providing effective support calls can be a valuable tool in motivating and fostering strong relationships with your team members!
Allow me to impart insights from an HBR podcast discussion on the art of delivering effective feedback. This conversation featured Therese Huston, a cognitive scientist at Seattle University renowned for her expertise in feedback, and Jessica Gomez, an elementary school principal who regularly provides feedback to teachers as part of her role.
Great leaders prioritize providing support calls to their team members. However, many leaders fail to execute them effectively. Rather than offering constructive support, these calls often focus on providing feedback. There’s an art to delivering feedback that leaders should master. Unfortunately, most leaders only know one approach: evaluation feedback. As a result, support calls become evaluation calls, often highlighting areas where individuals are perceived to be falling short. Additionally, the feedback is often based on unvalidated comments from other people, diminishing its effectiveness.
Providing feedback presents its challenges. How do you effectively streamline this process? Do you prioritize the most critical aspects for the most significant impact or focus on quick wins? It’s a matter of deciding whether to address significant areas initially or concentrate on more minor adjustments for immediate results. The difficulty lies in determining which feedback to address first without inundating the recipient with a lengthy list of issues. For recipients, handling multiple feedback points simultaneously can feel overwhelming.
From the discussion, I discovered that there are three different kinds of feedback: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. To remember this, I created an Acronym, “ACE,” which stands for appreciation, coaching, and evaluation.
They don’t necessarily have to be three different conversations; let’s define what it is:
From the HBR – The Art of Giving Feedback. https://hbr.org/podcast/2024/01/the-art-of-giving-feedback
Appreciation, often perceived as positive feedback or praise, entails acknowledging and highlighting desirable behaviors or actions that have a positive impact. It also involves recognizing and encouraging individuals to continue or enhance their actions because they excel in those areas.
Coaching is helping someone figure out how to adapt, build, learn, and grow. In the real coaching approach, it is more about asking questions rather than telling or advising.
Evaluation is the aspect of feedback that many of us find challenging to provide, often reserving it for the annual performance review. However, from my personal experience – it’s also the most common type of feedback received from our superiors, albeit often delivered in fragments or snippets.
Do these need to be separate conversations? No, not necessarily and in fact you should be giving a lot more appreciation than you should the other two. That builds trust. It helps the person see what they’re doing well. But it is very possible to combine the two.
The key point in “ACEing” or mastering your support call is to approach it by asking: “I’d love to give you some feedback. What would be most helpful to you right now? Do you want me to highlight what I appreciate about your work? Would you prefer some coaching and advice, or do you seek clarity on your current standing?” This question may catch the other person off guard as it’s not commonly asked. However, by inviting them to specify their needs, they can respond with, “Actually, I could use some coaching. I’m struggling with my math curriculum,” or “No, I’d like to understand where I stand. Can you provide that?” By opening up these options, it becomes easier to request appreciation. Asking, “Would it be helpful to hear what I love about your work?” is a gesture that most people would appreciate.
What I appreciate about this approach is that it addresses a common challenge I face with feedback: the uncertainty of what to expect. When someone says, “Can I give you feedback?” I often brace myself for the worst. However, if they specify, “Can I offer you coaching feedback?” or “Can I express appreciation for your work?” I’m better prepared mentally to receive the feedback.
“Let’s ‘ACE’ the support call as leaders and master the art of giving feedback!”