It may not always feel this way, but feedback is one of the most useful gifts we receive and one of the most valuable that we can give others.
Of course, it’s sometimes hard to see that value when feedback is given carelessly and without skill. And perhaps our own experiences of receiving feedback given badly might make us reluctant to give feedback. Certainly, it’s a part of their role that managers often find difficult.
Learning how to give feedback well is a vital business skill. As managers, knowing how to give feedback effectively can help us:
- Develop the skills within our teams.
- Help people achieve their full potential.
- Reduce errors and improve customer service.
- Ensure that everyone is playing their full part and contributing.
- Help individuals, teams, and organisations achieve better results.
And learning how to receive feedback with a positive mindset can help us:
- Identify our strengths and play to these.
- Develop our weaker skills.
- Achieve our full potential.
- Feel valued and appreciated because, remember, feedback when things go well is just as important as feedback when things don’t!
As you’d expect,
Trainers’ Library has loads of materials that will help you equip people with both skills, and here’s a small selection of those:
Giving Feedback
The ability to give good feedback is an essential part of the communication process and an important interpersonal skill. This e-learning module explores the things you need to consider when giving feedback on job performance and introduces a simple tool to help you structure your conversations.
If you want a simple but effective icebreaker that shows why giving feedback matters and why giving feedback well matters even more, this is a brilliant activity that, on the surface, appears to test your participants’ drawing skills. It’s guaranteed to get participants thinking about the feedback they’ve received and given in the past.
This module helps people understand the characteristics of constructive feedback, praise and criticism and gives learners some guidelines for constructing and giving feedback effectively
In this module, we use examples of important feedback given badly to give participants the opportunity to rescript it into something that is less likely to result in a defensive response and more likely to have a positive impact.
AID is a really useful and powerful feedback tool. It stands for Action, Impact and Do and we introduce the model here using our live-action customer service video (Why Do I Always Get Them?). This fun video, based on a real event, gives participants the perfect opportunity to practice constructing feedback of all types using the AID model.
Receiving Feedback
LACE (Listen, Acknowledge, Clarify, Explain) is a useful model to remember when receiving feedback, wherever it comes from and however it’s given. In this example, participants get the opportunity to use it with the example of feedback coming from an angry customer.
This practical module gives participants an opportunity to reflected on their current skills as a manager and identify a development plan based on honest feedback.
This short video is another way to introduce the LACE model. It will help people respond positively to feedback that is not given in a constructive or skilled way and provide them with a framework that will help them turn negative feedback experiences into something more positive they can learn from.
So, there you go. A small selection of training materials that will help ensure feedback is both given and received well in the organisations you work with!