You have a team. A team that works hard and is passionate about their job. A group that you’re excited to have on your side as you steer your company forward.

But sometimes, even the best teams need help. Sometimes they need to be steered in a different direction or helped through a rough patch to get back on track. How do you know when it’s time to provide feedback? And once you’ve decided, how do you do it in a way that will help the team improve?

Importance Of Feedback

Feedback is essential for improving performance, identifying problem areas, and building stronger relationships. It also helps improve employee engagement and job satisfaction.

Feedback helps your team grow as professionals, but it can be challenging to get them if you, the manager, may need to be trained in giving it. Luckily, there are several ways you can give yourself regular feedback to better your skills and performance, no matter what position you hold in the office.

Tips on How To Give Feedback To Your Team

Here are some guidelines for providing feedback to any of your teams:

Make sure you’ve got the correct information before providing feedback

Gather correct information first before giving feedback. If multiple people are involved, talk to everyone separately first. Then weigh in if you need to speak as a group. As much as possible, do so in a live meeting, not on chat.

Provide positive feedback along with any constructive comments 

People don’t need to feel like their being criticized all the time. So when you’re trying to give your employees constructive feedback, it’s best to be as positive as possible. It’s essential to ensure that the person you’re talking to knows that you appreciate the good contributions they make and that you’re giving them room for improvement. 

Negative feedback can discourage people from taking risks and trying things they’ve never tried. So make sure your comments are not critical but objective. Be brief, concise, and respectful.

Give regular and consistent feedback

This is important so that team members know they are on the same page.

Work teams mainly depend on the team members’ interaction and communication. For this reason, it’s imperative to have a way to gauge how effective your team is functioning.

The best way to give feedback is to provide it regularly in a setting where everyone knows that feedback is going to happen. Have a regular meeting where you go over the previous week’s work and what you’ll be working on for the next. This is a great way to keep your team focused and make sure that problems with collaboration are fixed quickly.

Be specific about what’s working and what could be improved

This way, people can quickly see how to adjust their behavior in the future. 

Clarity and specificity are important when discussing areas where improvement could be made. You want to give people some direction as to what they can do differently next time so they can improve, but you don’t want to throw out so many suggestions that it starts sounding like a checklist of everything they did wrong.

Feedback Helps Us Grow

Giving feedback is a crucial part of managing. To provide constructive feedback, you first have to know how to receive it. If someone gives you feedback, don’t take it personally. Feedback is there to help you become a better leader and improve your team’s performance. 

The truth is that both good and bad feedback is essential to being a team player and helping each other improve over time. 

The Formula for Good Feedback

A good formula for good feedback is the sandwich method. 

First, you mention the good things you liked.

Second, you mentioned the things you didn’t like and how they can be improved.

Third, you mention another good thing that you like.

This way, you’re ending on a good note.

Here’s an example of giving feedback to a sales team member:

“I like how you talked to our customer yesterday. You handled the conversation professionally and even offered an upsell. One thing you can improve next time is your energy and tone of voice. You can do that by smiling. I know the customer can’t see you over the phone but they can feel your energy when you’re smiling. You also ended the call very well by wishing them a happy weekend.”

Notice the feedback is very specific as to what could be improved, and all the good things were specifically mentioned.

Over To You

This kind of giving feedback is not only applicable to team members. You can apply it to your personal relationships, or even book reviews!

Try it and see how different it will change your life.