Before Giving Feedback, Observe Your Own Emotional State

As we work together, we’re annoyed with people, for valid reasons. They don’t stick to what they agreed to. They go back on decisions. They don’t understand and respect that work takes a certain amount of time. And so on. So it’s completely understandable if we’re upset and pissed off with people.

But, before giving feedback, one should let these emotions pass. Let the anger boil away, leaving un-emotionally loaded conclusions. Take inspiration from other fields. When an experiment goes wrong, a scientist doesn’t get angry. He just objectively notes that too much strontium caused the reaction to fail, for example.

As another example, the Netherlands Aviation Safety Board report on the deadliest air accident says:

The KLM fuselage skidded over the Pan Am aft fuselage, destroying and shearing off the empennage. The KLM aeroplane continued in flight, hitting the ground about 150m further on and sliding another 300m, on the runway.

Observe that there’s no anger here.

Anger would, in fact, be counter-productive to understanding and improving things.

So, before giving feedback, observe your own emotional state. Are you upset? Reliving your past disputes with the other person? Stressed? Tense? If so, postpone the meeting, saying you’re not in the right frame of mind for this.

People can sense your emotional state and pay as much attention to it as to what you’re saying. On the other hand, they’ll take strong feedback when they notice you’re calm in your heart. It’s not about external aspects like smiling or the words you use. The internal aspects — your emotional state — will leak out into the communication. So give feedback.

You can and should be blunt about the actual facts of the matter. For example, if a stakeholder keeps changing their mind, you can say, “Once we’ve made a decision, I expect you as a leader to have the discipline to stick to it.” But say that as a matter of fact. Be blunt without being angry.