The coauthors of the New York Times–bestselling Difficult Conversations take on the toughest topic of all: how we see ourselves Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen have spent the past fifteen years working with corporations, nonprofits, governments, and families to determine what helps us learn and what gets in our way. In Thanks for the Feedback, they explain why receiving feedback is so crucial yet so challenging, offering a simple framework and powerful tools to help us take on life’s blizzard of offhand comments, annual evaluations, and unsolicited input with curiosity and grace. They blend the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology with practical, hard-headed advice. Thanks for the Feedback is destined to become a classic in the fields of leadership, organizational behavior, and education.

Understand feedback with this accessible, concise, and informal guide. Perfect for students, especially those who need a refresher, as well as practising engineers.

A game-changing model for giving effective feedback to peers, employees, or even your boss--without offending or demotivating. How are you supposed to tell someone that they're not meeting expectations without crushing their spirit? Regular feedback, when delivered skillfully, can turn average performers into the hardest workers and stars into superstars. Yet many see it as an awkward chore: Recent studies have revealed 37% of managers dread giving feedback, and 65% of employees wish their managers gave more feedback. This trail-blazing new model eliminates the guesswork. Dr. Therese Huston, the founding director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Seattle University, discovered that the key to being listened to is to listen. First, find out what kind of feedback an employee wants most: appreciation, coaching, or evaluation. If they crave one, they'll be more receptive once their need has been satisfied. Then Huston lays out counterintuitive strategies for delivering each type of feedback successfully, including: Start by saying your good intentions out loud: it may feel unnecessary, but it makes all the difference. Side with the person, not the problem: a bad habit or behavior is probably less entrenched than you think. Give reports a chance to correct inaccurate feedback: they want an opportunity to talk more than they want you to be a good talker. This handbook will make a once-stressful ordeal feel natural, and, by greasing the wheels of regular feedback conversations, help managers improve performance, trust, and mutual understanding.

Whatever level you occupy in an organization, from line manager to senior executive to team leader, the skill of giving meaningful and effective feedback is an important component to helping other people develop and to getting the job done. Creating and delivering a specific message based on observed performance is key to effective feedback. Your feedback should enable the receiver to walk away understanding exactly what he or she did and what impact it had on you. When the result is this specific and this direct, there is a better chance that the person getting the feedback will be motivated to begin, continue, or stop behaviors that affect performance. This guidebook explains how to deliver effective feedback by showing how to build your message, when to deliver it, and how to communicate it. By using the methods and examples in this guidebook, your feedback becomes a tool for development—for others and for yourself.

A practical and irreverent guide to taking the sting out of feedback and reclaiming it as a motivating, empowering experience for everyone involved. Feedback: the mere mention of the word can make our blood pressure rise and our defenses go up. For many of us, it’s a dirty word that we associate with bias, politics, resentment, and self-doubt. However, if we take a step back and think about its true intent, we realize that feedback needn’t be a bad thing. After all, understanding how others experience us provides valuable opportunities to learn and grow. Authors M. Tamra Chandler and Laura Grealish explain how feedback got such a bad rap and how to recognize and minimize the negative physical and emotional responses that can erode trust and shut down communication. They offer a new and more ambitious definition of feedback, explore the roles we each play as Seeker, Extender, and Receiver, and introduce the three Fs of making feedback focused, fair, and frequent. You’ll also find valuable exercises and strategies, along with real-world examples that illustrate how you can put these ideas into action and join in the movement to fix feedback, once and for all. When it’s done right, feedback has been proven to be the most effective means of improving communication and performance for you and your organization. It’s too important to give up, and with Chandler and Grealish’s help, you’ll be able to use it deftly, equitably, and effectively. “Feedback (and other Dirty Words) cuts straight to the chase on what you need to do to revolutionize feedback in your organization. If we all approached feedback in this way, business (and the world at large!) would indeed be a better place.” —Kathy O'Driscoll, vice president of People, Snowflake Computing Inc. “Like it or probably not, people don't grow without feedback. Can you deliver feedback without closing people down? Chandler and Grealish give the tools and methods for making feedback feel good. Not only will Feedback (and Other Dirty Words) help you with your next performance conversation, it can transform your company culture to be more agile and enjoyable.” —Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, past president, International Coach Federation, and author of The Discomfort Zone

Praise for The Power of Feedback "Some books are worthy of being recommended simply because of their subject matter. . . . There is no greater force to improve the quality of human relationships or improve the way organizations function than to multiply the amount and improve the quality of feedback." "Other books are worthy of being recommended . . . when an author takes an otherwise abstract, obtuse subject and turns it into an actionable, practical set of things to do. Joe Folkman has accomplished that task . . . helping individuals and organizations to develop feedback-rich environments . . . [and] change through the use of a variety of surveys and feed?-back instruments. He has made this topic highly engaging and accessible." "So, here you have the best of everything--an important topic; a talented, entertaining, and highly qualified author; content that is practical; and a text written in an easily comprehended manner. Enjoy." --From the Foreword by John H. "Jack" Zenger "Joe Folkman has years of experience and miles of wisdom from coaching and training high-performance organizations. He speaks truth: change is hard. But feedback can be very powerful if the receiver makes the commitment to lasting change. Folkman has scored a home run with The Power of Feedback." --Maria Nalywayko Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Fremont Investment & Loan "Most of us are clueless when it comes to providing feedback. But now, thanks to Joe Folkman's The Power of Feedback, we have a road map for turning the feedback we receive into lasting and profound change." --Jeffrey Gill Director of Organization Capability, The Coca-Cola Company