Giving Feedback
🚧 ExpandingMost feedback fails for one of two reasons: it’s too vague to act on, or it’s so softened to avoid discomfort that the actual message never arrives. Good feedback is specific, timely, and tied to behavior rather than character — and it’s given because you care about the person enough to be honest with them, not in spite of it.
When this page is filled in, it’ll cover lightweight structures like SBI (situation–behavior–impact) for keeping feedback concrete, how to give praise that’s as specific as your criticism, the difference between feedback and coaching, and how to make feedback a normal weekly rhythm instead of a dreaded event. Until then, the Go Deeper links carry it — Kim Scott’s Radical Candor is the mental model I lean on most. When small, regular feedback isn’t enough and a real gap has set in, that’s where handling underperformance picks up.
📚 Go Deeper
Books
- Radical Candor — Kim ScottCare personally AND challenge directly — the framework that names why vague-but-nice feedback fails people.
- Thanks for the Feedback — Stone & HeenThe flip side most managers skip: how feedback is received, and why even good feedback bounces off.
- Crucial Conversations — Patterson et al.For the high-stakes, emotionally-loaded feedback conversations where the usual scripts fall apart.