How can you give someone feedback?

Correcting another person’s wrong perspectives, beliefs and behaviours is hard for anyone. You never know what the reaction will be.

You don’t want to be straight up and honest because you don’t want to risk bad feelings between you both. But at the same time you feel that you need to do something for their own sake.

You care and you want to do right by this person. But how can you achieve this with minimal collateral?

People employ many subtle ways to do this. Certain social protocols have been developed over time to break the news while sparing feelings.

The most common way is through hints and hypothetical scenarios that people concoct.

This is often times effective specially when the person is socially aware.

However, if the person is not so switched on to this type of communication, your words will be lost on them.

I think its always best to be honest when it comes to addressing these things. That way both parties know what is going on.

One skill I learnt at toastmaster when giving feedback is first to commend the person on positives, then provide advice for improvement and then commend again to lessen the blow.

I feel we can apply a similar technique here.This way the likelihood of your advice being heard is high and the chance of hurting feelings is lower.

I know I don’t always like to hear negative feedback because of my own ego or because I am oblivious to the fact that there is a problem. (like most people)

But the truth is I would much rather know if there is something I need to work on. I just hope that I will get to hear the feedback from people in the palatable form mentioned above. (*Cheeky Grin*).

~Thanks for Reading~