Recently (and not-so-recently), I’ve written a lot about assertiveness – how it can feel mean but is actually the kindest form of communication, and how being “nice” is overrated.  One of the most viewed articles on this blog is about setting boundaries, and what to expect as a result of enacting that assertiveness.

What I haven’t given enough airtime to is the idea that when being assertive and setting boundaries, it’s important to deliver that information in a way that has a high likelihood (but not promise – remember, you can’t control other people’s feelings) of being well-received.

Let’s look at a few examples.  How would you feel in the following situations?:

  • You get home at the end of a work day, and the moment you enter the house, your significant other says, “you’re late again.  You’re always late.”
  • You give a presentation to a group of coworkers, and afterwards one of them says to you, “boy, you were awfully nervous – you were fidgeting and pacing the whole time!”
  • You go to a parent-teacher conference, and your child’s teacher tells you, “Billy is a really, really slow reader.”

And that’s it – no context!  How do you feel?  Defensive?  Angry?  Embarrassed?  Ashamed?

That’s the thing: you leave the encounter feeling upset.  The fix?  A feedback sandwich!

 

Feedback Sandwich

Ingredients:

  • 2 pieces of genuine, authentic positive feedback
  • 1 item of constructive criticism

Recipe:

  1. Evaluate whether this is a good time to talk to the person who will be receiving your feedback. Do they seem like they’re in a good mood? Are they in the middle of something?
  1. Ask them to come talk to you when they have a few minutes. This allows the other person to have the conversation at their convenience, so they don’t feel that they have to interrupt what they’re doing. If the person you’re speaking to is someone who is in a lower position of power (for example, you’re their boss), let them know that they’re not in trouble.  If it’s someone you have an emotional connection to (such as a significant other), tell them you’re not upset.  If it seems like it won’t incite a sense of urgency, you can also give them a “subject line” to narrow their concerns.
  1. Deliver an authentic, genuine, specific piece of positive feedback. This is not something trite or generic, but something that you sincerely think they did well.
  1. While considering the Venn diagram of assertiveness, gently but directly deliver a piece of constructive criticism. Constructive means something they can use to implement changes moving forward, rather than just an insult.
  1. Give one more authentic, genuine, specific piece of positive feedback. Again, avoid being trite or generic.
  1. Work collaboratively with the feedback recipient to develop a way to proactively address the concern expressed in #4.

Some Examples

Your spouse: “Thank you so much for texting to let me know you were on your way.  It helped me have dinner ready on time, and let me know when you were actually out the door.  When you get home at 9:00, though, it throws off my whole eating schedule.  I know your intentions are really good and that you’d like to spend more time together.  Can we talk about a way to change this in the future?”

Your coworker: “Thanks for giving that presentation today!  I hate public speaking, and you’re awfully brave to have volunteered for this talk.  You probably weren’t even aware you were doing this, but I bet if you could stop pacing next time you give a talk, you’d look a lot more confident.  You did such a great job, and I learned a lot, and I feel like that would give your talk a stronger impact.  If you’d like to do a practice run of your next presentation, I’d be happy to watch and give you feedback to help maximize your effectiveness.”

Your child’s teacher: “Billy is such a sweet kid.  Just the other day, someone was picking on another child, and he stood up for her.  It’s such a pleasure to have him in my class this year.  One thing that he’s having a hard time with, though is reading.  He’s performing below the expected level, and I’m concerned it might affect his other subjects.  He’s doing great in math, but I think he would benefit from working with a reading tutor.”

 

Responding to Criticism of the Feedback Sandwich

If you Google “Feedback Sandwich,” the first few hits are all scathing criticisms of this idea.  These articles suggest a lot of other ways to approach delivering feedback (Forbes recommends the “feedback wrap” instead – cute, right?) and those are also good.  But I’m not sure I’d be so quick to toss the sandwich method in the trash.

Let’s look at some of the most common criticisms of this method:

It’s trite and inauthentic.

That’s true – it can definitely come off that way if you don’t mean the positive parts of the feedback you’re delivering.  Those slices of compliment bread MUST be based on real strengths that the person has.  If you’re making things up, the recipient will know. People have an amazing radar for insincerity.

Here’s a new take on an old adage: “If you can’t think of something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”  Let’s replace “nice” with “kind” in light of our recent explorations of how nice is overrated, and examine it from there.  This adage has historically been something parents tell their children to teach them to be passive – to keep any criticism to themselves.  But if you strive for empathy, you will always be able to find something kind or compassionate to say in conjunction with your criticism.  So if you can’t find anything kind to say… double down on empathy and understanding.  Then, use those honest, authentic things in your sandwich along with action-oriented, kindly-worded criticism.

The positives fall on deaf ears.

How many times have you gone into an annual review meeting with your boss, been told that overall you’re doing a great job, but you need to put a cover sheet on your TPS Reports?  You leave the meeting and even though 95% of what was said to you is positive, you fixate on the one negative thing and think, “oh man, I suck at formatting my TPS reports – I’ll never get this darn thing right!”

The Negativity Bias – which means the very human and nearly universal tendency to focus on the negatives – is functional from an evolutionary standpoint.  When your receive positive feedback, it’s not an action item.  But negative feedback?  That’s something to add to your “to do” list.  It makes a lot of sense that our brains process it this way.

While this can’t be eliminated completely, and it will affect different people in different ways, the blow of it can be lessened.  When the positive feedback given is genuine (see a theme here?), that helps a lot.  But it helps even more if that positive feedback is reinforced on a regular basis, and not only given in the context of a feedback sandwich.

The feedback can get lost in the compliments.

Have you ever eaten a sandwich that was a little bit messy?  And then at the end, you grabbed a fork and gathered up all the pieces that fell out of it?  Step 6, above, is a bit like that.

Essentially the opposite of the negativity bias, this addresses the concern that if you’re too effusive, the recipient of your feedback leaves the conversation thinking “yep, I’m awesome!” without processing that there are important changes to be made.  That’s why it’s important at the end to essentially say, “help me help you – how can we improve this thing that we want to change?”