refoundai Giving Effective Feedback
Transform difficult conversations into catalysts for growth and high performance.
Help the user with giving effective feedback using insights from 30 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter.
How to Help
- Preparation - Help the user structure their thoughts using the GAIN framework to ensure feedback is goal-oriented and evidence-based.
- Roleplay - Use the AI Voice Mode prompt to simulate the conversation and practice responding to potential defensiveness.
- Refinement - Review a draft of the feedback to remove judgmental labels and ensure the user is 'staying on their side of the net.'
- Debrief - Analyze the results of a feedback session and plan for necessary follow-up actions and commitments.
Core Principles
Care personally and challenge directly
Kim Scott: "Radical Candor is just what happens when you care personally and challenge directly at the same time. And I think it's probably best understood by what it's not because we all fail on one of those two dimensions or both of them multiple times a day."
Effective constructive feedback requires balancing a genuine personal connection with the courage to be direct about what needs to change.
Stay on your side of the net
Carole Robin: "We don't understand that we are only privy to two out of the three, so I know what's going on for me and I know what I did. I have no idea what happened on your end."
Acknowledge that you only have access to your own intent and the other person's behavior. Speak only to the impact that behavior had on you.
Frame feedback as a joint effort
Alisa Cohn: "You know, Matilda, I want to chat with you about the way you're interacting with your peers. So what I'm hearing from them is that you're missing deadlines on a regular basis and not letting them know you're missing the deadlines, and that also you're not fully keeping your team up to speed. And so they're kind of confused running around. Now, we both know that the most important way you can be successful here and also achieve your goals is to make sure that you are working with your peers in a way that's consistent and that they can count on you and you can count on them."
Position difficult feedback as a collaborative exercise intended to help the employee achieve their own professional goals and improve team coordination.
Prioritize mutual understanding
Rachel Lockett: "There's a misguided view that the goal is to convince the other person that what they're doing is wrong. Actually, the goal of any conflict is to create mutual understanding."
Focus conflict resolution on achieving shared clarity rather than proving who is right or wrong, recognizing that professionals are humans with emotions.
Separate identity from behavior
Dr. Becky Kennedy: "The idea of being good inside inherently requires us to separate behavior and identity. We infer a lot from people's behavior. Someone's late to work a lot, 'Oh, that person's lazy.' The quickest way to have an unproductive conversation is to lose sight of the fact that someone's good inside."
Avoid labeling employees with character traits like lazy. Instead, focus on specific, observable actions to prevent triggering defensive identity threats.
Dial down self-judgment
Matt Abrahams: "Strive for connection over perfection by daring to be dull. Just give the feedback. By doing that, you dial down the volume of self-evaluation, freeing up resources that can be used to really help you succeed."
Prioritize the needs of the recipient and the core message over your own performance anxiety or internal critic during the delivery.
Foster public debate through trust
Jeetu Patel: "Every management book that you read will tell you in public criticize in private. I fundamentally disagree with that notion. What you have to do is, is establish enough trust among the team so that you are comfortable critiquing and debating in public."
Build a foundation of trust that allows for rigorous critique of ideas in transparent forums rather than behind closed doors.
Commit to the growth journey
Alisa Cohn: "Hope for the future is so important. I know this is going to be challenging for you to hear, not going to promote you, but I want you to know this. It's really important to me that you're able to succeed in your career here, and so I want to continue to help you find opportunities to build your skills and to advance."
Reaffirm your commitment to an employee's future even when delivering difficult news, such as a denied promotion or performance gap.
Templates & Frameworks
- GAIN Framework for Feedback (Introducing the GAIN framework for feedback: an evidence-based approach to giving feedback that people love, appreciate, and act on) - A four-part evidence-based framework for giving feedback that people are receptive to and act on. GAIN stands for Goal, Actions, Impacts, Next actions. The core
- Three Realities Model (Stay on Your Side of the Net) (Healing your co-founder relationship) - A framework for having difficult conversations without triggering defensiveness. In any interaction between two people, there are three realities: Person A's in
- GAIN Feedback Preparation Template (Introducing the GAIN framework for feedback: an evidence-based approach to giving feedback that people love, appreciate, and act on) - A fill-in template with prompts to prepare GAIN-framed feedback before a conversation. Available for download.
- Next Actions techniques for closing feedback conversations (Introducing the GAIN framework for feedback: an evidence-based approach to giving feedback that people love, appreciate, and act on) - Five specific techniques for turning feedback into concrete commitments
- AI Voice Mode role-play prompt for practicing feedback (Introducing the GAIN framework for feedback: an evidence-based approach to giving feedback that people love, appreciate, and act on) - A detailed prompt template for using AI voice mode to practice feedback conversations before having them
- Vocabulary of Feelings (Carole Robin) - A reference list of actual feeling words to help people accurately identify their emotions and avoid using 'I feel that...' statements.
- Observations vs. Judgments distinction (Introducing the GAIN framework for feedback: an evidence-based approach to giving feedback that people love, appreciate, and act on) - A core principle in GAIN feedback: share observations of actions and impacts, never judgments (critical or flattering)
- Acknowledge Your Own Contributions (Introducing the GAIN framework for feedback: an evidence-based approach to giving feedback that people love, appreciate, and act on) - A feedback principle where the giver names their own role in the problem to preempt defensiveness and model vulnerability
- Three Questions for Joint Problem-Solving (Healing your co-founder relationship) - A framework for generating solutions to co-founder or interpersonal conflicts by simultaneously answering three questions.
See references/artifacts.md for the full list with details.
Questions to Help Users
- "What is the specific, observable behavior you want to address, and what was its impact on you or the team?"
- "What is the shared goal that both you and the recipient ultimately care about in this situation?"
- "How have you contributed to the current situation or the problem you are addressing?"
- "Are you currently feeling a distancing emotion like anger, or a connecting emotion like hurt or fear?"
- "What specific commitments or 'who, what, by when' actions do you want to see as a result of this talk?"
- "How can you frame this feedback to move toward a gain rather than just away from a pain?"
Common Mistakes to Flag
- Prioritizing personal comfort - Withholding feedback to avoid an awkward moment is a selfish choice that stunts the other person's professional growth.
- The generic feedback request - Asking 'do you have any feedback for me?' rarely yields honest criticism; you must ask specific questions about what you should stop or start doing.
- Using distancing emotions - Using anger to create space during a conflict prevents the vulnerability required to repair and strengthen the relationship.
- Ignoring non-verbal cues - Failing to observe how the recipient is reacting can lead to your message being dismissed or causing unintended emotional harm.
Deep Dive
For all 27 sourced insights from 30 guests, see references/guest-insights.md
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