How to Give Feedback

At Careem we like to give feedback as often as possible and as honest as possible. It can be quite a shock for those who are new to the company. You may be confronted over something you’ve done, or you’ll get a shout out at the next company meeting. In this post, I’ll go over an example of how you can give feedback (good or bad) to someone.

A technique that we use is called the Situation-Behaviour-Impact technique. It’s a great feedback tool because you can use it to accurately describe what your fellow human is doing without imposing your thoughts or feelings too intently on it. You don’t want to make the person you are giving feedback to defensive. This helps to avoid that — but not 100%.

You need to be careful though. You should only state facts and be as specific as possible. Do not generalise. That will undo everything you want to achieve.

Situation

This is where you start. You need to tell the person you’re giving feedback when and where this happened. Examples:

Yesterday, when we had our retrospective meeting…

This morning, during our stand up…

On Thursday, during the company meeting…

Behaviour

Next, you need to describe the behaviour that the person you’re giving feedback to did. Be honest. Do not exaggerate.

…you lead the meeting…

…you were late…

…you were on your phone…

Impact

Finally, you need to describe what impact this behaviour has on you or others around you. The person receiving the feedback may not realise that what they are doing is affecting other people.

…and that made me feel like you are on your way to be a team leader.

…and that means the team has to wait for you. We have people from Dubai calling, and you are using up their time too.

…and that made our CEO feel like he wasn’t important to you.

Shoot for the moon

At Careem, our culture doesn’t just stop there. We also let the person receiving the feedback know how they can improve. So, if I continue the examples above, you’ll see how this feedback can make the person receiving the feedback become a rocket.

… In the future, you should take the lead on more meetings. That will help our manager see you’re ready for more responsibility.

… It would help the team if you turn up on time from now on or notify us when you’re late. I think it’ll improve morale to see you early.

… I think you should keep your phone in your pocket during meetings from now on. You don’t want to be called out for the wrong thing.

And that’s it. Simple. Just remember this template and people won’t cower in fear every time you give them feedback. It’ll be pleasant and quick and you can do it as often as you like.

Originally published at www.alexaitken.nz on September 10, 2018.