How to Deliver Performance Feedback

Thank you, Elisa Infante Freeman, Libby Langenderfer and the RevistaMed Rising Leaders Council for inviting me to train your group recently here in beautiful Boulder.

We dug into influencing across contexts, having performance feedback conversations, how to actively listen as the primary skill set to get really good at, and we learned a simple coaching model for leaders.

Speaking of leading hard-to-deliver feedback conversations, it's probably the topic I get asked the most about.

Here's help for those in the feedback convo hot seat.

People will be more likely to receive hard-to-deliver feedback if:

(1) you have some relationship capital built first

(2) they know that you are seeing a pattern instead of a one-off event

(3) you have done some thinking about whether you might be projecting your own stuff onto them -- reacting to your personal hot buttons

(4) you avoid making assumptions (e.g., "you seemed defensive" or "you looked unengaged")

(5) you make it a real, authentic conversation and not just a "this is a gift" moment.

Gangster Tip: Build into your weekly or bi-weekly 1:1s with your directs the mutually agreed upon expectation to be open to sometimes hearing and receiving performance reactions. (I say "reactions" because it's not "truth" at all really, merely one person's experience of impact in this context.)

• Talk about the lovely-to-hear as well as the harder-to-hear stuff.

• Talk about your experience with that direct report and ask for reactions that person has had lately with the 1-2 areas you yourself are focused on as a leader.

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Need help with performance feedback? Let's talk about it.

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