Priming and Delivering Empathetic Feedback

No matter how much you want to help someone, giving feedback can make or break your buy-in. The real issue is, how do we deliver it properly and without angering someone? You may know what this person needs to get better. Better yet, you may have a step by step approach to everything this person needs to jettison them to the next level. Sometimes you even wish you could take over their body and do all the things for them that is going to make them be what they say they want to be.

What we’ll discuss here is a bit of emotional intelligence, some examples from a few good reads, and practices that can help us along the way. The problem that we’ll look to solve is this: How are you ever going to be able to tell them what you think without either offending them, or completely shattering their confidence?

For a long time I felt like I would struggle to deliver the right feedback to people and I never knew why. I even remember watching a manager give feedback to someone else thinking “I can’t believe he/she just told them that?” I actually almost felt what the person was feeling. To me it was a skill I didn’t think I’d ever acquire until I read about it, learned a lot of what I needed to know, and practiced it. What I first learned about giving feedback was that I needed to learn about myself first. With that, I needed to learn about EQ:

What is EQ:

EQ is emotional intelligence and google defines it as “the cap

acity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.” We’

ll dive more into this aspect of coaching and how it relates to the cr

eating-buy in process in the future, but for now we’re going to look at it in the light of the feedback delivery process.

People who are highly emotionally intellige

nt people are tuned into what others are feeling and, as a result, pivot their approach socially. The five facets of Emotional Intelligence are Empathy, Social Skills, Motivation, Self-Regulation, and Self Awareness. We’re going to hone in on Empathy for this discussion. For more on Emotional Intelligence read the HBR 10 Must Reads

Empathy, or “How would YOU like to here this feedback”

Empathy is having the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. One would think having high empathy would be a feedback delivery superpower but it is really a double edged sword. Having a high empathy score can do wonders for your delivery of feedback because what you’ll essentially be doing is asking “How would I like to hear this”? (Which brings up a great question: How WOULD you like to hear your own feedback? We suggest taking a DISC assessment to find out that answer. We also suggest having the team do the same. This will give them a bit of self-awareness and give you some guidance on their preferred delivery style). https://www.tonyrobbins.com/disc-landing-form/

While that is all well and good, on the flip side, having a high empathy score could also be detrimental to your delivering of feedback. Think of this as a sort of bell curve graph where the right amount of empathy will give you a high quality feedback delivery. Too little and the feedback will be too harsh. Too much and you may not even give them the feedback in the first place! With all of that in mind, lets get into the methods of delivering empathetic feedback.

“If you are clear in your own mind about how your feedback will be helpful, it will come across to the other person naturally. But if you don’t understand why your feedback is helpful, how will the person receiving it?” – Kim Scott Radical Candor

Priming the Pumps

What priming the pumps really means is to pour water into an older pump in order to get it working properly. This way it can hit the ground running, or pumping? We don’t want you to think of the team as a bunch of suction valves that need priming, but the phrase has a good lesson here. Much of feedback needs to be prefaced with a bit of “Pump Priming”. In that, we mean the main message should start out with another message, either good or bad. This all depends on the person and kind of communication style that they prefer (DISC is an important tool here) and your relationship with the person.

Priming Positively and Negatively

Priming Positively: Leading with Praise

To prime positively, we’ll start out our feedback with something positive. An example here is POS feedback or Praise, Opportunity, Suggestion.

Praise – this is the “priming” section of the conversation where we mention something they’re doing great but is relevant to the whole message.
Opportunity – This is the message and what you feel they need to work on
Suggestion – This is how the person can fix whatever they’re opportunity is. This part is collaborative and always works better when they come up with the solutions themselves.

POS feedback can be a great way to get your conversation started by “priming it” with some positive comments. These positive comments will have to be somewhat relative to the “opportunity” section though. You can’t go in and tell someone they’re great at keeping their car clean and then hit them with their opportunity.

What you would do here is start out by getting the person’s attention by saying some praise: “Dave you’re a kick-ass employee, you’re always on time, you’re an influencer on the team, and it doesn’t go unnoticed”. Boom, you’ve got Dave’s attention and his ears are open. Now you can hit him with what his opportunity might be: “I noticed there’s a few assignments that haven’t been done and I need you to take the lead on doing those training videos that I asked the team to do.” Now the suggestion: “Going forward please get these things done as soon as possible so we can be the best we’re capable of and you can be that great example on the team that I know you are.” As we mentioned above, this portion of the feedback is always more effective when they come up with the solutions themselves.

We’re not doing anything egregious here, mostly because Dave IS an influencer and IS on time all the time. You’ll certainly want to use Dave’s real positive attributes here and help him remember how much of a valued member of the team he is.

Priming Negatively: “Defusing” or “Taking the sting out of it”

In court many lawyers will use this by listing out everything the defendant has been accused of. Something like: “people will say my client did this or did that”, or “what you’re going to hear the prosecution say about my client is this”. This is a great way to list out any and all negative things right away, essentially taking the wind out of the prosecution’s sails. Chris Voss in his book on negotiating “Never Split the Difference” calls this, “going right after negativity so that it can bring you closer to a safe zone of empathy.”

“Remember the amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear in reaction to threats? Well, the faster we can clear the road of obstacles, the quicker we can generate feelings of safety, well being and trust.

How do you do this? We do this by “labeling the fears” Chris says. “Labeling is a way of validating someones emotion by acknowledging it.” Before delivering the feedback take time to yourself to do an “accusation audit”, where you’ll list out what this person is going to say to retaliate your feedback and how this person is going to feel while hearing this information. You’re going to need to know who this person is and what their history is with the team before something like this.

Say we have a frequently late Jerry who has been delivered a few corrective conversations where afterward you’ve heard through the grapevine (because you keep your ear to the streets) that he feels like he’s being picked on and that being late isn’t a big deal. “Jerry, you’re not going to like what I have to say and you’re going to think that I’m picking on you here because it seems so minute and unimportant, but the quality of the product we produce depends on punctuality, you’ve been late many times, and we need to correct that”. There’s nothing wrong with telling Jerry that he’s not going to like what you have to say. He’s not, and you’re being honest.

You can see these are very different approaches both displaying empathy because you’re using what you know about the person in order to help them out. If someone were to acknowledge your great work and in that same breath give you feedback on how to be better, you’re going to listen. Conversely, if someone were to use this “tactical empathy” approach through labeling, you’re going to feel like you’re getting feedback from someone who cares, listens, and understands.

You can see how “priming the pumps” in the feedback delivery process is quite important to get someone to listen and understand where you’re coming from.

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Conclusion

Feedback can make or break your relationships with the team so consistent practice is important if you don’t want to come across too harsh. Remember the empathy graph in that you can’t approach someone with ZERO empathy, while you can’t have empathy off the charts either. Positive or negative priming when delivering feedback can help you cater that approach while keeping who you’re coaching bought-in during the process. In the end delivering feedback with empathy will have the team either singing your praises because you care or tearing down your buy-in behind closed doors because you’re too harsh.