Managers are always giving feedback. It can be to people who report to them, to peers, or even bosses. The ability to give feedback in a positive manner is an essential skill for building positive relationships in today’s business world.

An exercise I do with most of the groups that I work with is to have each person in the group to identify one strength and one opportunity for improvement for each other person in the group. When I introduce this activity, I usually get substantial resistance. Often members of the group don’t want to be put into a position of “criticizing” others. I remind them that the assignment is not to criticize, but rather just give people some observations about things that would help them to do better.

Once we get into the activity, the reservations and resistance quickly disappear. I find that when people approach this feedback with a certain attitude, that the process becomes positive. The first attitude is that they must own the feedback that they are giving. I insist that the person giving the feedback look at the other person. The feedback must be preceded by the word “I”. The feedback is based on personal observations, not hearsay from others. If a manager cannot verify feedback with their own experiences, it should not be given to the other person.

The second attitude is that the feedback is intended to help the other person, not make them feel bad or embarrass them. When people perceive that the person giving them feedback has their interest at heart, they are much more likely to accept the feedback. An important trait that high performance teams possess is the ability to give everyone on the team feedback that will help the team to improve.

The third attitude is that in order to give feedback, you must be willing to receive feedback. The group exercise is designed so that each person experiences giving and receiving feedback. This sets the tone for the entire relationship. After each person hears their strengths and weaknesses from the other group members, they are asked to summarize what they heard, without either agreeing or disagreeing. Too many discussions between bosses and subordinates are one way – the boss gives feedback without asking for or accepting feedback from the subordinate.

The final attitude that I find is feedback that is simple, clear, and specific has the most impact. I once had a person who worked for me who had a bad habit of firing off a strongly worded email when he got upset with someone. Rather than lecture him on this, I drew a picture of a hand grenade with the red circle around it and a red line through the circle. The message was “no hand grenades allowed”. He fully understood my feedback and actually posted the picture in his office as a reminder. I find in the group sessions that people inject humor and laughter as they give feedback, particularly the areas for improvement. The person gets the message in a positive manner.