7 Ways to Share Effective Feedback by Bobby Powers
In the past two weeks, two people have thanked me for giving them unsolicited feedback.
I was struck by this because society tells us that people hate critical feedback. While that theory is mostly true, studies show that most of us want more feedback than we currently receive. Employee engagement firm Office Vibe found that 65 percent of employees want more feedback. They also found that 82 percent of employees appreciate receiving feedback, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative.
However, many hesitate to share critical feedback because they don’t know how to do it effectively or they’re worried about how the person on the receiving end will respond.
What Happens When Feedback Isn’t Shared?
I discovered the tough answer to this question when I was 24. As a freshly minted MBA grad, I accepted a management position leading a team of 50 people in a retail store. A couple months into that role, I had to fire one of my team leads — a person who had been with the company for five years.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
