Turn Your Feedback Inside-Out

There's a lot of talk these days about helping managers give more feedback to employees. What if it's not a matter of more or less feedback, but rather intentional versus unintentional feedback? In other words, your managers are giving your employees plenty of feedback already, but are phrasing it in a way that prevents growth, instead of inspiring it.

Unintentional feedback is emotionally withdrawn. It expresses a feeling or judgment but does so without any transparency or vulnerability. It leaves the listener wondering what you're not saying.

Intentional feedback expresses a feeling or judgment, too, but it does so in a way that is transparent, based in care for the individual, and inspires them to look inward.

Let's take three situations:

1. When you notice yourself feeling anxious about a deadline…

Unintentional: "Where are we with that?"

Intentional: "I'm a little worried about where we are on that project, can you give me a better idea of our progress?"

2. When you notice an employee who seems unhappy…

Unintentional: "Hey, how was your weekend?"

Intentional: "Hey, you seem a little out of it this week. I noticed you didn't share your opinion as you typically do in meetings. Is there something going on?"

3. When you find yourself drawn into a conflict…

Unintentional: "Well, you both should try and work this out."

Intentional: "I get that this is frustrating for you, but what I'm asking is for you to find your contribution to this conflict. If you can do that, I can help you through this."

The feedback employees are hungry for is the same kind we all want: genuine insight from a person in our life who cares about us.