Feedback is a gift.

Giving great feedback is an art and a science.

Many companies have two formal times when they document feedback:

• The Year End Review — a management-led process that combines personal assessment and community assessments
• The Mid-Year Review — a management-led process that is much more lightweight and focused on more of a check-in or promo moment

For mid-year reviews, I encourage teams to document their assessments and comments for each other as a “Peer Feedback” review. They give each other non-anonymous documentation of any constructive or positive feedback they have for each other.

For any feedback “process” to work, it has to be built upon a stronger foundation of constant feedback. While most people can cognitively grasp that feedback should be given in-person and as soon as possible, it helped clarify choices and timing when I put it into a diagram. I created this flowchart a few years ago that gives clear guidelines for how to give feedback and when:

Give feedback as soon as possible, in person. That assures our documented feedback is capturing information that has already been shared with the individual — and should never be a surprise.

And what should and shouldn’t be said when giving great feedback?

Great feedback is concrete, constructive, actionable.

Effective feedback requires:

1. The feedback provider is credible in the eyes of the feedback recipient
2. The feedback provider is trusted by the feedback recipient
3. The feedback is conveyed with good intentions
4. The timing and circumstances of giving the feedback are appropriate
5. The feedback is given in an interactive manner
6. The feedback message is clear
7. The feedback is helpful to the recipient

Feedback Do’s:

• Be specific when recalling the situation
• Be specific when describing the behavior
• Acknowledge the impact of the behavior on you
• Make it positive
• Make it only about behavior

Feedback Don’ts:

• Don’t assume
• Don’t judge the person
• Don’t be vague about feedback
• Don’t pass along vague feedback from others
• Don’t give advice unless asked

The only response required from the recipient: “Thanks for the feedback!”

If you’ve created a positive, constructive environment, the recipient may want to ask clarifying questions and engage with you about the feedback. But don’t force it, that is up to them.

How do you think about feedback? And how do you coach to help others give great feedback?

Do you have experience managing an anarchist/anti-establishment type? I think there are some good qualities to foster from them (creativity, drive, initiative, curiosity, etc), but at the same time there are some bad qualities I’m trying to avoid spilling over into the rest of the team.

The biggest problem I’ve struggled with when confronted with people like that is the ​internal​ one.

Specifically, there is something about the anarchist that I can relate to — the courage to speak truth to power, to call bullshit, etc.

As a manager, anything that causes me to be more conscious of the fact that I am the manager — the pointy haired boss from Dilbert, the “Man”, the “Establishment”, the “bourgeois” — I will often respond with internal bias and try to move away from. A-la “Hey, I know I’m The Establishment, but I’m one of you, see!”

And that has caused me to take the wrong approach with “anarchists.” Flat out, I’ve failed here multiple times.

I approach them like this: “Hey, I ​love​ that you’re one of our best coders, you really get x, y, and z done well and help the team meet those objectives. And I know you’re super perturbed/annoyed/eschew of management/the system/etc. And mine, and the company’s value, is to never squash contrary opinions. We want to hear from everyone.”

…see what I just did there?

…I just screwed myself.

…Because now I backed myself into a corner.

…By giving The Anarchist a huge out in my own psyche, which is, “Hey, you’re speaking truth to power, if I change that, I’m going against the perception and in fact silencing contrary opinions.”

Dumb me. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Here’s an approach with more candor and context: “I love what you have to offer. And it’s often wrapped in a package that doesn’t move the team forward, but instead stalls people due to them starting to doubt the mission. And when you do that, you lose credibility. You, and I, want your expertise to be received and acted on and learned from as many people as possible. That isn’t happening when you say x and behave in {anarchist manner x, y, z}. I recommend instead you do {smiley, nice, good communication}. It’s going to be better for you and the group and help us all be more productive. This time next week we’re going to sit down and I want you to show me your plan for making that happen with deadlines. Let me know if you need some coaching on that.”

What’s your anarchist employee story and how did you handle it? Share in the comments below.

August 1991, San Francisco State University. We were working in the studio, hustling around to try to prepare for a big show with a musical guest. I was up on the lighting grid, adjusting a couple spotlights. I had a grip below me; a gaffer at the light board; the three camera operators were wheeling their cameras into place; the set designer was nailing up some last pieces; the audio operator was labeling the board and the audio assistant was taping cables down. Our Professor, Charles “Buzz” Anderson, a regal, elegant, eccentric delight,glided into the studio and said, “Everyone exit the studio,now.”

Charles had retired from a very active and lucrative career as a television director to become a tenured professor. In his lifetime, his cameras had been focused on some of the top talent of the entertainment industry — Barbara Streisand, Bette Midler, Robert Redford, John Wayne, and many, many others.

In camera language, there is the wide shot, the medium shot, the close-up, and the extreme close-up. Film is the medium for landscapes — film lives for the wide shot. Majestic landscapes, and wide, expansive plains, are all beautifully shot and presented on film.

Television, conversely, is the medium of the close-up. Soap operas show how two people gaze longingly at each other. Debates and interviews show people looking at each other critically. Television news anchors are made to look more trustworthy because we can look right into their eyes and they look right back at us.

Zooming-in from a medium shot to an extreme close up, there are moments where the composition of the shot is bad. Maybe it looks awkward because it cuts off the subject’s ear, or her nose, or her neck. Most new directors stop a zoom-in at the close-up. The subject’s head is framed nicely from her shoulders to the top of her head, and from ear to ear with a little bit of look space between her eyes and the edge of the screen. It is a safe shot — close, but not too close. It will do in a pinch, and it will let you see the color of the eyes of the subject — and not much else.

Buzz taught his students — insisted, really — that they push past this point, into one of the most awkwardly framed shots that was the most convoluted of compositions. It looked horrible. It made a person uncomfortable just watching it. But Buzz demanded the students zoom-in past that awkward framing to a shot that was even closer — to the point where you could see the subject’s nose flaring, his eyes twitch and look away, the sweat drip down his brow. This was the place where you saw the soul of the subject. Anything wider was merely “looking at” the subject. At this extreme close up, Buzz knew we were now “looking into” the subject, as in the old adage, “the eyes are the window to the soul.”

Buzz had honed his eye to see beyond what the camera saw, into the very soul of the people sitting before him. It was his job and passion — he made sure the camera revealed that true nature of the subject. He taught his students with that same emotion and commitment. It was vitally important to him that no one come out from under his wing without a solid understanding of the moral and ethical responsibility to be true to those subjects. It was important to Buzz that his students know how to identify and, as best they could, reveal their subject’s inner monologue. This required venturing past the safe wide shot through the crappy semi-close shot into the extreme close-up. At that close you could catch a glimpse of the person’s soul.

But how do you teach this sort of sensibility and sensitivity?

Back in the studio, we detangled ourselves from whatever we were doing and filed out. Buzz made a point to close the door and lock it behind us. He walked upstairs to the control room, pulled its door closed, and locked it, too.

“Follow me outside,” he said, and pushed through the outer doors of the College of Creative Arts foyer into the crisp San Francisco air.

We all filed out behind him, wondering what he had in store for us.

“Observe if you will,” he said, with a flourish of his hand toward the sky, “the beautiful sunset. Look at it.”

It was a glorious smog-filled sunset that pulsed dark red hues, rich oranges, with streaks of purple and pink, splattered like a Jackson-Pollock across the blue sky dotted by Rorschach- shaped wisps of clouds. The yellow orb of the sun slowly disappeared behind the hills.

I took a deep breath and tried to take it all in, committing the entire vision to memory. I turned and looked back at Buzz. He was sitting at the edge of a planter and was pulling out a long, tan cigarette.

“Challenge yourself to really see this sunset. Examine it,” he said. “It is right in front of you, but are your eyes really open?”

I blinked incredulously at the deep concept.

“Continue to observe it until I finish this,” he waved the cigarette in the air, “and we will not go back inside until I take the last draw.”

I turned back to engage my being with the sunset to the best of my meager abilities.

Buzz slowly smoked his cigarette, giggling every few minutes at some concept that tickled him. Whether it was the absurdity of his naive students struggling so intently on such a peaceful scene, or some completely unrelated joke he was remembering — even then, he was paradoxically far away and so very, very present.

Do you have a favorite story from a treasured teacher? Share in the comments!

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