Feedback is a gift
Nah, I'm good....
I’d just finished giving a presentation I’d practiced for weeks. I’d spent more time preparing for this thing than I’d spent memorizing my lines for Romeo and Juliet in college.
So naturally, I wanted to know how it landed with the audience. I sought out my manager.
“I don’t know. I mean – a lot of people were on their phones. I think they were bored.”
I can’t imagine the look on my face at that moment. But it prompted her to quickly follow up with “I’m just being honest!”
Let’s talk about that phrase for a minute.
There are people who will tell it like it is with zero thought to how you’ll take it - and wholly believe that adding “I’m just being honest!” makes the whole thing okay. Like they’ve done you a favor in the most insulting way possible.
All they’ve really done is give themselves license to spout off with no thought about how it lands. And you don’t have the right to feel slighted – because they were being “honest.”
While we’re being honest, let me call it like it is: laziness. It shows all the emotional intelligence of a damp dishrag.
By all means, give honest feedback. But take a minute to think about how you do it.
Maybe my manager thought she was coaching - but what she was really doing was criticizing. There was no real feedback - nothing I could latch onto to improve in the future.
Here’s something SHE could improve in the future:
She could have set the tone so I wouldn’t feel blind-sided, then given something specific I could work on:
“This might be hard to hear, but it’s important you know how your presentation seemed to land with the audience. It came off as scripted – and I think some people tuned out because of it.”
Saying the hard thing takes guts. But if you want to help someone - not just unburden yourself - it also takes a little thought. Skipping that step, then relying on the “I’m just being honest” disclaimer, shows you don’t care enough about that person to say it in a way that doesn’t leave a scar.
Need help with feedback that lands? Check out the free download Say It Better: Feedback Phrases That Work, available here.
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A manger’s job is to improve the performance of those that work directly for them. Therefore by this measure your manager failed spectacularly in this instance.