PRDV008: Preparing and Delivering Presentations

Constructive feedback, both positive and negative, can help individuals learn and improve their performance.

Learning Objectives

Employ constructive feedback in conjunction with the varying control functions available to managers in an organization

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Positive and negative feedback can be constructive when it addresses factors directly related to performance over which someone has control.
• Constructive feedback serves as motivation for many people in the workplace.
• A performance appraisal or performance evaluation is a systematic, periodic process that assesses an individual employee's job performance and productivity in relation to established criteria and organizational objectives.
• In human resources or industrial psychology, 360-degree feedback, also known as multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, or multi-source assessment, is feedback from members of an employee's immediate work circle.

Key Terms

• feedback: Critical assessment on information produced,
• constructive: Carefully considered and meant to be helpful.

Critical assessments are essential to learning and performance improvement. Individuals often rely on external measures, such as exams or feedback from others, to determine strengths and weaknesses. Praise and compliments are welcome reassurance of a person's abilities, but negative assessments can hurt unless clearly supported by observations and thoughtfully delivered. Whether positive or negative, feedback can be constructive when it addresses factors directly related to performance over which someone has control.

Knowing how to deliver constructive feedback is an important skill for a manager and leader. Constructive feedback motivates many who use it to change their behavior, study new things, or adopt new attitudes. After receiving constructive feedback, an individual decides whether and how to put it to use. Joseph Folkman, an expert in the use of the 360-degree feedback technique, comments that those who want to achieve the greatest level of success possible should learn how to accept any kind of feedback, analyze it in the most positive manner possible, and use it to influence future choices.

Feedback in Organizations

Feedback is given in organizations in a variety of ways. Some are informal, as when a colleague offers a compliment or critique after hearing a presentation or reading a report. Others feedback mechanisms are more formal and part of a process created for the explicit purpose of delivering performance assessments.

Performance Appraisal

A performance appraisal (PA) or performance evaluation is a systematic and periodic process that assesses an individual employee's job performance and productivity in relation to certain established criteria and organizational objectives. Other aspects of employee performance are considered as well, such as organizational citizenship behavior, accomplishments, potential for future improvement, strengths and weaknesses, etc. While performance appraisals are documented in writing, usually a manager will meet to provide and discuss feedback with an employee. Using specific examples of each behavior to support each assessment is helpful in indicating what someone needs to do differently or improve.

360-Degree Feedback

In human resources, 360-degree feedback, also known as multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, or multi-source assessment, is feedback that comes from members of an employee's immediate work circle. Most often, 360-degree feedback will include opinions from an employee's subordinates, peers, and supervisor(s), as well as a self-evaluation. In some cases, it can also include feedback from external sources, such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. The 360-degree assessment may be contrasted with "upward feedback," where managers are given feedback only by their direct reports, or with a traditional performance appraisal, in which employees are most often reviewed only by their managers.

After-Action Reviews

At the end of a project, team members benefit from reviewing how they worked together, how well they met the project objectives, and whether they achieved the planned outcome. This after-action review entails a candid analysis of work product, communication practices, individual effort, coordination and planning, and other key aspects related to the project. The goal of this form of feedback is to apply lessons learned from one project to subsequent ones. Constructive feedback in this context is best delivered by focusing on actions and outcomes rather than on blaming individuals when things did not go as planned.