Friday, 8 June 2007

How To Be Iron In Someone's Life

Pro 27:17 CEV
(17) Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other.


This is an often quoted Scripture, but not an often well lived out Scripture. Lets start a revolution that changes all of that!

Yesterday we spoke about how to receive feedback into your life... today we will look at how to give feedback.

  • The motive for giving feedback must originate from your love for the person and your desire to see that person grow
  • Always ask permission before offering your feedback. An example ask would go something like, "Jim, if you would like, I have some feedback for you from when you ...". You simply put it out there that you have feedback and then leave it up to the other person to ask you if they would like to hear it.
  • Do give feedback face to face. (I have learnt the hard way that e-mails can be read the way the person is feeling at that moment!)
  • Don't overload the person with too much feedback. One or two points is sufficient for the person to go back and work on. anymore than this can just feel overwhelming.
  • Sandwich the feedback with genuine praise and encouragement. (we tend to remember negatives 4X more than we do positive feedback).
  • Some people do not like receiving the feedback immediately. Perhaps a day or two after the event would be more appropriate (unless of course their behaviour is inappropriate).
  • Feedback should be given within 2 weeks of the event or the person won't remember what you are talking about.
I hope this helps. Let us know how it goes!

4 comments:

Kenrick Smith said...

hey clive
it it ok if i give you some feed back?
cos i think your awesome and i really like your leadership style(bottom up, not top down).

you once did a blog(more than two weeks ago) on why Jesus used questions and it's been in my head for ages...

well Jesus did use questions.. but mostly parables or storys.
At vision on tuesday we learnt that "Parables function as a means of calling forth a response on the part of the hearer" for example david and nathan- david's response to nathans parable; that man should be killed!. quite a response.

your cool.

yeahorr benny hinn tonight.
gonna get me praise on, then my healing on, then my change the world on.

Kenrick Smith said...

oh and nice barbie girl video, i was waiting for her to fall over or do soemthing silly but it's just normal... so dissapointed.
ha

James said...

Maybe it is just my pet peeve, but I generally find the sandwich approach annoying. If you want to correct something don't try to disguise by 'sandwiching' it between complements.

I don't think the sandwich approach is bad but it is often used with poor excuses for compliments or compliments that just aren't meant...

I think you need to give people honest feedback, don't force some kind of 'sandwich' approach on something that just needs to be said. It must be genuine or you undermine your whole feedback.

Imagine that you want to let me know that I need a hair cut. In my opinion there is no point telling me that you like my shoes, need a hair cut and you like eye colour, unless everyone of those things would be worth saying on their own. I guess what I'm saying is be totally genuine, don't make stuff up because you think you need a 'sandwich'.

Another thing to remember is to think about whether the person already knows what you are going to say. Sometimes that makes a difference, maybe you really need to say "How can I help you in area X?" rather than "You know you should really work on X" maybe they are really trying to do something about it already?

And finally, you sometimes need to decide if you are the best person to provide the feedback. I'm not advocating gossiping but sometimes it is better to pass the feedback to someone through someone else, their best friend perhaps?
This is especially if there is some reason why it may not be appropriate for you to provide feedback eg. Say because they are of the opposite sex or much older than you. Often the other person is also more likely to be listened to than you.

Clive Smit said...

To respond to your pet peeve James...

Would it not be more accurate to say that you dislike the substance of our praise rather than the sandwich technique itself?

I believe the sandwich is important because we do have that tendency to remember the negative and not see the positive at all.

I will write how to encourage with authenticity and power soon (I've got some mean as stuff on that!)