Guidelines For Giving And Receiving Feedback

A close friend and colleague, Dr. George Lehner, developed these guidelines a number of years ago. They hold up, they are tough to execute consistently, but doing so makes each of us better. I’ll share just a short summary of George’s guidelines. If you want more detail, feel free to contact me.

• Focus feedback on behavior rather than the person.
• Focus feedback on observations rather than inferences.
• Focus feedback on description rather than judgment.
• Focus feedback on descriptions of behavior which are in terms of “more or less” rather than in terms of “either-or.”
• Focus feedback on behavior related to a specific situation, preferably to the “here and now,” rather than to behavior in the abstract, which places it in the “there and then.”
• Focus feedback on the sharing of ideas and information, rather than on giving advice.
• Focus feedback on the exploration of alternatives, rather than answers or solutions.
• Focus feedback on the value it may provide for the recipient, rather than the value or “release” it provides the person giving the feedback.
• Focus feedback in the amount of information that the person receiving it can user, rather than on the amount that you have which you might like to give.
• Focus feedback in time and place, so that personal data can be shared at appropriate times.
• Focus feedback on what is said rather than why it is said.