Welcoming the Gift of Feedback

FountainBlue’s June 14 When She Speaks was event on the topic of ‘Welcoming the Gift of Feedback’. See panelist bios at https://www.tikkl.com/fountainblue/c/june14feedback. 

Our panelists this month represented a wide range of companies, roles and perspectives, but they shared a passion for leadership and management, and humbly shared their best practices for providing feedback.

Provide impactful feedback:

• Make feedback specific, sincere, data-based (not personal), and continually, so that others know how to better perform.
• Aim for ‘SMART’ feedback which is specific, measurable, achievable (or actionable), realistic and time-lined.

Focus on growth and positivity: 

• Be as open to receiving feedback as you are to providing feedback. Welcome opportunities to grow yourself, while providing learning opportunities for others to also grow.
• Be positive and constructive rather than negative and judgmental.
• Empower and enable others to help themselves, to come to their own conclusions and solutions.
• Adopt a positivity mindset – Find ways to be more positive and constructive with your feedback, while still correcting for inevitable errors.

Be strategic:

• Recognize the motivations of the other party that’s providing the feedback. Understanding their motivations will help you validate the relevance and legitimacy of the feedback offered.
• Consider both the strategic and the tactical implications of the feedback offered.
• Focus on the longer-term performance and development of the person, rather than individual mistakes and errors made.
• Look for trends on the feedback delivered.
• Identify and focus on the root cause of problems.

Be Leader-ly:

• As a leader, own the problem, recognize and coach the team.
• Listen well before speaking and acting. With that said, err on the side of action.
• Work collaboratively to solve problems.

Nobody’s perfect. Everyone can benefit from feedback, as long as it’s delivered with positive and constructive intent, and received in the same manner.

---

Please join me in thanking our gracious hosts at ASML and our panelists for FountainBlue’s June 14 When She Speaks event on the topic of ‘Welcoming the Gift of Feedback’:

• Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
• Panelist Nancy Gilbert, Director of Engineering, Lam Research
• Panelist Nithya Ruff, Head, Open Source Program Office, Comcast; Board Member, The Linux Foundation 
• Panelist Jinping Song, SQA Director, ASML
• Panelist Monika Thakur, Vice President, Cloud Operations, Oracle

Advertisement