Benchmarking—achievement within a system of standards (grades, test scores, Likert scales)
- Implies objectivity
- May or may not improve performance
Transformational—designed to promote change – PIP, parents/teacher/student, performance appraisal (type 2 Drive)
- Focuses on behavior
- Is suggestive as well as descriptive
Warning Feedback—Watch out for the car!
- Immediate
- Focuses on radical change
- Venting – hand signals, skin-to-skin, “poison send”
Blind Spot feedback—The majority of performance issues are not due to capacity or motivation but due to cluelessness, especially among managers, whose employees don’t provide corrective feedback.
- Decrease cluelessness
- Its absence never indicates success
- Facilitative Feedback is the most effective model
Facilitative Feedback has three rules:
- Feedback is a problem-solving tool when we suspect the problem, or at least part of the problem, is cluelessness, i.e. lack of data or insight regarding impact of behavior.
- Feedback is always about the giver.
- Feedback is a gift. Say “thank you.”
The only reason I need to defend myself from feedback is if I see it as threatening. Even if the other person is the south end of a northbound horse, I can say "Thank you." Sincerely. No judgment. We don't have to affirm or deny feedback because it's about THEM.
Listen carefully, pay attention, don't react. As soon as I feel threatened, I move into the world of lizard logic: defend the territory, compete, fight, flight, or freeze. It happens in a moment, BUT not if I don't allow myself to feel threatened by feedback, no matter how brutal.
Two basic possibilities with nasty feedback:
The giver is trying to push my buttons: "Thank you" works great.
The giver is simply nasty. "Thank you" still works great.
Feedback is always a wonderful gift because it provides a terrific insight into the other person's assumptions, perceptions, biases, and values. What a bargain!