This week's tip is great for those of you who hold 1:1's with your employees.
Or you who regularly give a lot of feedback.
Hi, this is Danni. Welcome to Friday Feedback.
Last week we talked about throwing and catching a ball as a metaphor for giving and receiving feedback.
Why do we give feedback?
Why do we even give feedback, though?
To answer that, we can ask ourselves a question.
Immediately, some thoughts will probably come to mind:
"Well, we have a feedback culture!"
"The person has said they really want feedback."
"That's part of our 1:1 meeting. It's that there is feedback."
There's just one monkey in the room.
If we revisit the book "Hjernesmart Ledelse" by Anette Prehn, she describes some research that shows that the reward center in our brain is activated when we give advice - which is followed.
Especially if they are followed, it activates the reward center even more.
Do you see where this is going?
This means that your brain automatically rewards you when you give others good advice, including feedback that is put to good use.
Feedback doesn't have to be advice, but sometimes it will be.
Let's go back to the original question.
Why do I want to say this to my employee, boss, colleague, partner?
It could be that the true motivation is really about wanting to show that you've seen something.
That you know something the other person doesn't.
Well, unconsciously. I'm all for that.
2 Strategies for moving forward
One way we can help ourselves in this situation is by doing two things.
One is to find out: What do they really care about?
Use this to guide your feedback.
And sometimes your feedback may not need to be delivered at all.
Maybe it was more about you wanting to show that you knew something.
It's okay, it's okay. It happens to all of us. We just don't need to provide that feedback or advice.
This leads me to the second thing we can do, which is to consider:
Am I really saying: "You should do this"?
Instead of just giving my observation and the effect I think it has.
The tip of the week is to ask yourself: "The feedback I'm about to deliver, where is it coming from? And is it worded as advice?" - "Maybe I can change it a bit so it's received even better".
Thank you for taking a look. :-)
.png)
