How do you give feedback?

A. One of the things I've learned is that it doesn't matter how many good things you say, the one bad thing is what sticks. So. therefore, feedback should be viewed in the context of time, not in any one specific episode. So if I have something negative to say, I will say it. I will be clear about it. But I won't try to couch it in a lot of positives, because people have a natural tendency to not want to hear a negative message. So I try to do it as quickly as I can, and I try to do it in the moment. But I also try to give positive feedback in other moments. To try to mix the two is often very hard, because the positive messages get lost in the one negative message, and the negative message gets garbled.

Providing effective feedback is an art, but one that is often erroneously taught as a science. Fortunately, good managers tend to see right through scripted recipes for effective feedback, as they know first-hand that what constitutes "effective" is determined by the situation.

One of the most common recipes for feedback - the "Feedback Sandwich," if you will - calls for a dash of praise followed by a healthy dose of constructive criticism, then finished of with a pinch more positive. It's a theoretically reasonable approach, and when providing feedback in a formal review and/or in writing it can be quite effective. However, in everyday practice it often comes across contrived and insincere.

In many ways, the model that Yamada points to is far superior. It's not about seeing feedback as an act and applying a single formula to all situations. Rather, it's about feedback as a process that plays out over the course of a relationship.

If you've built up a strong rapport and foundation of trust and respect with your direct reports by providing consistent, positive feedback and praise over time, then offering the negative should be a simple and straightforward act.

Good advice from a strong leader.

One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons shows an office worker slumped against the wall, clutching his chest. As worried colleagues rush to aid the stricken employee, he mumbles: “Don’t worry, it was just a fleeting sense of purpose.”

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Here’s an experiment for you. Pull together your company’s latest annual report, its mission statement, and your CEOs last few blog posts. Read through these documents and note the key phrases. Make a list of oft-repeated words. Now do a little content analysis. What are the goals and ideas that get a lot of airtime in your company? It’s probably notions like superiority, advantage, leadership, differentiation, value, focus, discipline, accountability, and efficiency. Nothing wrong with this, but do these goals quicken your pulse? Do they speak to your heart? Are they “good” in any cosmic sense?

Now think about Michelangelo, Galileo, Jefferson, Gandhi, William Wilberforce. Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa. What were the ideals that inspired these individuals to acts of greatness? Was it anything on your list of commercial values? Probably not. Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor.

I talk to a lot of CEOs, and every one professes a commitment to building a “high performance” organization—but is this really possible if the core values of the corporation are venal rather than venerable? I think not. And that’s why humanizing the language and practice of management is a business imperative (as well as a moral duty).

A noble purpose inspires sacrifice, stimulates innovation and encourages perseverance. In so doing, it transforms great talent into exceptional accomplishment. That’s a fact—and it leaves me wondering: Why are words like “love,” “devotion” and “honor” so seldom heard within the halls of corporate-dom? Why are the ideals that matter most to human beings the ones that are most notably absent in managerial discourse?

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Why is it that managers are so willing to acknowledge the idea of a company dedicated to timeless human values and yet so unwilling to become practical advocates for those values within their own organizations? I have a hunch. I think corporate life is so manifestly inhuman—so mechanical, mundane and materialistic—that any attempt to inject a spiritual note into the overtly secular proceedings just feels wildly out of place—the workplace equivalent of reading a Bible in a brothel.

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Every organization is “values-driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?

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Which brings me back to my worry. Given all this, why is the language of business so sterile, so uninspiring and so relentlessly banal? Is it because business is the province of engineers and economists rather than artists and theologians? Is it because the emphasis on rationality and pragmatism squashes idealism? I’m not sure. But I know this—customers, investors, taxpayers and policymakers believe there’s a hole in the soul of business. The only way for managers to change this fact, and regain the moral high ground, is to embrace what Socrates called the good, the just and the beautiful.

So many fantastic bits of wisdom in this one post. Awesome.

Some similar thoughts in a SocialEarth.org post here.