*Stop Serving the Feedback Sandwich*
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Adam Grant
Wharton professor, NYT writer, author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE
Stop Serving the Feedback Sandwich
How do you give feedback to a CEO who’s twice your age? I was 25, a new professor called in as a last-ditch, Hail Mary effort to save a dying company. They had already fired three consultants, so why not try me?
The CEO had been leading longer than I’d been alive. After several weeks of watching him in action, interviewing his senior team, and gathering data from his employees, it was time for me to bring down the hatchet. His company had merged with another firm and he was still trying to figure out where to go. His team desperately needed him to outline a vision.
When I went to colleagues for advice, they all told me the same thing. Put a slice of praise on the top and the bottom, and stick the meat of your criticism in between. It’s the compliment sandwich, as Stewie Griffin called it on Family Guy—a technique for giving feedback that’s popular among leaders and coaches, parents and teachers.
But when I looked at the data, I learned that the feedback sandwich doesn’t taste as good as it looks.
Problem 1: the positives fall on deaf ears. When people hear praise during a feedback conversation, they brace themselves. They’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it makes the opening compliment seem insincere. You didn’t really mean it; you were just trying to soften the blow.
Problem 2: if you avoid that risk and manage to be genuine about the positives, they can drown out the negatives. Research shows that primacy and recency effects are powerful: we often remember what happens first and last a conversation, glossing over the middle. When you start and end with positive feedback, it’s all too easy for the criticism to get buried or discounted.
Giving a compliment sandwich might make the giver feel good, but it doesn’t help the receiver.
Instead, try these four steps to make your criticism feel constructive:
1. Explain why you’re giving the feedback
Recently, a team of psychologists was able to make feedback 40% more effective by prefacing it with just 19 words:
“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”
Rather than feeling attacked, now you feel like the person has your back and believes in your future. People are remarkably open to criticism when they believe it’s intended to help them. As Kim Scott observes, people will accept being challenged directly if you show that you care personally.
2. Take yourself off a pedestal
Negative feedback can make people feel inferior. If you level the playing field, it’s a lot less threatening:
“I’ve benefited a lot from people giving me feedback, and I’m trying to pay that forward.”
“I’ve been studying great managers, and I’ve noticed that they spend a lot of time giving feedback. I’m working on doing more of that.”
“Now that we’ve been working together for a while, I think it would be great if we gave each other suggestions for how we can be more effective.”
All of these messages send a clear signal: I’m not perfect. I’m trying to get better too.
3. Ask if the person wants feedback
“I noticed a couple things and wondered if you’re interested in some feedback.”
I’ve opened this way many times, and no one has ever declined. Once people take ownership over the decision to receive feedback, they’re less defensive about it.
4. Have a transparent dialogue, not a manipulative monologue
Organizational psychologist Roger Schwarz suggests a thought experiment. Imagine that you’re about to give feedback to two employees, but you have to be transparent about what you’re trying to accomplish:
“I have some negative feedback to give you. I’ll start with some positive feedback to relax you, and then give you the negative feedback, which is the real purpose of our meeting. I’ll end with more positive feedback so you won’t be so disappointed or angry at me when you leave my office.”
It sounds ridiculous. Here’s what Schwarz recommends instead:
“The presentation you gave to the senior leadership team this morning may have created confusion about our strategy. Let me tell you how I’d like to approach this meeting and see if it works for you. I want to start by describing what I saw that raised my concerns and see if you saw the same things. After we agree on what happened, I want to say more about my concerns and see if you share them. Then we can decide what, if anything, we need to do going forward. I’m open to the possibility that I may be missing things or that I contributed the concerns I’m raising. How does that work for you?”
Putting it in Action
When I was preparing for the meeting with the CEO, I learned that all three consultants had tried to compliment him, and he saw right through it. It was time to take the feedback sandwich off the menu and be radically candid.
I started by explaining why I was giving the feedback. “Your senior team all believes you’re the right guy to save this company, and I do too. I hope I’ve seen something that can help you do that.”
Next I took myself off a pedestal. “I see this as a two-way street—there’s a lot I can learn from you about leadership. Who are the leaders who have taught you the most in your career?”
He gave me a few examples, and one was a leader with a clear, compelling vision. I took the opening and asked if he wanted feedback: “Your team actually has some pretty consistent views on how you can deliver your vision. Do you want to hear them?”
He nodded and took out a pen. I shared a few of their observations and asked if he agreed. He did—he needed to clarify the vision. A few weeks later, he stood up and rolled out his vision. It was a triumph.
Later that year the company failed anyway. But if I had given a compliment sandwich, it might have failed even sooner.
Adam Grant is a Wharton professor and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World. His free monthly newsletter on work and psychology is at www.adamgra...et
Written by
Adam Grant
Wharton professor, NYT writer, author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE
IMPERISHABLE SOUL
Fallen leafA disciple asked his Guru- “Is there a ‘Soul’ in our body,? Will it not ‘perish’ like the body.?”
The Guru explained…
“Milk” is useful but if left as it is.. it gets spoiled…
In case you add a drop a “Buttermilk”.. it becomes “Curd”.. and the Milk that turns to Curd, remains for one more day without getting spoiled…
If left as it is.. the Curd gets spoiled…
Yet, if you churn the “Curd” it becomes “Butter” which doesn’t get spoiled…
But, even Butter also does not remain fresh for many days.. It becomes rancid or spoiled after a few days…
But if you melt Butter in a proper manner.. It becomes pure “Ghee”, which never gets spoiled…
Now, do you see that the “Milk” which gets spoiled contains “Ghee” that never gets spoiled.?
Likewise, inside the “perishable” Body, there is an “imperishable” Soul…
Sankirtan, Seva Sadhana..
makes the “perishable Body”..
to be one with “imperishable Soul”..
Human Body is the milk..
Sankirtan is the buttermilk..
Seva is the churning..
then by Sadhana we melt the ‘reformed body’ to be one with the ‘Soul’.
@ros_guy @JonSnow @marketdimer @Achilles
@devashi @mahidada @panchabhut @Atlantic
Positive Versus Negative
Positive thinking and optimistic outlook will never produce bad results. Negative thinking and pessimistic approach will never produce good results. Positive thinkers will never fail. Negative thinkers will never succeed.
@mahidada @forgotten @A2Zdeals @@balhans@@
@Gr"@Gr@h@m@lkene™":http://www.desidime.com/users/...14 @krishan42933 @sheetalvarunyadav2223
@B@R_0_0_D wrote:
thx for tag.. keep tagging me ahead in these beautiful posts
“@DeepUdaipur ":http://www.desidime.com/users/...13 @Navneet @M Shamikh @Coupon Kumar @Chirag
Thanks barood bhai for tagging..
I follow and like your posts though dont always comment…
Keep going
Sentence, Sensation, Concept and the Flow of Consciousness
The simple present tense covers all the prevailing concepts—-situation, general tendency, trends, events…We call it the general idea at the present moment or simply the contemporary situation. All sciences, new thoughts, projections etc., are based for expression on his paradigmatic tense. All sciences are generally written in this tense. It is the base of all analysis. But this tense in reality is a myth. By the time you actually notice it, the ‘it’ or situation has flown away at 1, 86,282 miles per second. It is memory, really past. Still it represents the general impression, supposed to be in the present.
From there when we proceed to the next tense—the present continuous tense, we experience the present. Here analysis is not possible. It is the ambition of all to live in this tense undiluted by the other tense sensations. It is the actual experiencing. It represents, what actually is happening now. One cannot experience and also analyse. It is feeling the situation. Actually the so called continuation too is a myth. The Universe is continuously changing and there is no repetition. So the reality is succession and not the repeating continuation.
We put a stop to the present continuous tense to start analysing; we jump to the present perfect tense, the situation immediately after the experience. But does a sensation really end completely? It is just event marking and really not the ‘immediately after’. Because the sensation continues.
But if you want to experience and also analyse a little at the same time you try through the present perfect continuous tense, a futile exercise, because in actuality you miss the present continuous tense portion of this tense. You abstain from living in the present and live in introspection mainly or thinking as to what may happen in the future. The ambition of this tense is of course retrospective introspection continuing into the present feeling.
Usually, immediately after an experience, when you experience the present perfect tense, you begin to go deeper and you go into introspection—-the past tense sensations. You vividly experience the past concepts, as though they are not past, you enter the simple past tense or the past prevailing concepts, no longer vividly felt as in the present continuous tense. The simple past tense situation is very difficult to experience as the simple present tense continuously interferes. There is always the conflict, or the sense of incompletion.
But a more difficult effort is feeling the past continuous tense, as though the past has become alive and that the present has not happened. You base your ideas on the simple past paradigms and then feel the past continuous. The embedded subsequent concepts in the memory come into direct conflict with the effort to feel the past continuous tense.When you go to the past perfect, put a separation to the past continuous and feel the aftermath, in the past perfect tense, you have to do a lot of sub-conscious unlearning. Actually you remain only as a guessing thinker and you cannot feel the past perfect tense very vividly.
When you go to the past perfect continuous tense, something that started in the past and continuing in the past, but really over now, you leave your present. You have to practise living in the past, immersed in it by ignoring the present. Often, as seniors we do it. It is almost our ailment. We cling to it.
When we enter the realm of the future tenses, we often escape with the ‘how to write it’, than how to feel it.
How many can accurately predict the simple future tense of the normal day today future concepts? Our societies are caught by the change fever. We have come to accept as seniors our forced irrelevance, though unwillingly. But the young among us, trash and nonsense it and insist on living as youngsters in the present only. I only heard the name—Futurology, but I have not read any book on that subject. But most people, who no longer like to be called economists, prefer to call themselves futurists.
May be, they are actually living in the future continuous tense, but must be feeling the pull of the living present. It is very difficult to feel and live in the future continuous tense. You have to build a large number future paradigms and then feel and live them—-the life of visionaries.
But my God, can we really enter the arena of the future perfect tense? In economic planning, in business establishments, they have developed many tools. Actually in the Market Research work; the permitted error of the projections relating to sales etc, appears to be only ten per cent. But in these days of competing and jostling new technologies, and the resulting economic applications, feeling the future perfect tense is an extremely difficult task. But how will it be say, when the Higgs boson is synthesized for say controlled big bangs? How will it be when consciousness can study itself?
Feeling the future perfect continuous tense can only be fantasy. Starting from the past, travelling through the present and living in the future is the future perfect continuous tense. We may enter even the subject, reincarnation, our pet subject, though trashed and nonsensed…But after all science often is nonsensing the prevailing accepted sense.
YM