How to Give Positive Feedback: You Can Do It!

Again I find myself writing about something that's not so obvious for many of us and one might read the title of this post and think like "well, I'm just not good at that" and then skip this.

While that might be to true, listen me here: You are absolutely right! It's not easy and it doesn't come by nature for all of us. I - myself - am a one example of that. Giving positive feedback has been a hardest thing for me, always. I can give positive feedback sometimes for kids or pets, but for adults - na-a!

That's NOT POSSIBLE

Don't be like that, of course it is! But I hear ya! As I already started on this, it has been a struggle for me too and I thought thats one of those things I wont ever learn - nor I need to. However, I saw a friend to learn that in a short period of time. In the beginning it's hard, because your mind is saying that you sound like fake and everyone else senses that too, but that's just in your head! Just like walking, speaking or riding a bike, this can be learned by repetition.

Appreciation and Negative Feedback

I might be messing up couple of things here, but bare with me. What one needs and wants? What do you need and want? It has been examined that people needs to feel appreciated, needed and wanted. How it goes usually - is that employees do the work with zero-to-no-feedback at all until something goes wrong. They get salary of course, but is that really a feedback? Is it making one feel appreciated, needed or even wanted? - NO, HELL NO. It's just a compensation of the time you have given to the company.

So you messed up at the work, showed up late, broke something or forgot something. You are getting yelled at, nasty looks from teammates or from boss. Boss is going to give you "the speech". After that you are going back to your work and continue with this negativity in your mind until you forget it or something goes wrong again. No wonder employees are feeling depressed and undervalued.

Many Forms of Positive Feedback

For some reason giving positive feedback has been thought to be a situation where one person to says nice things to another person about them. This is only one form of giving positive feedback. Things to consider here are how often positive feedback has been given, who actually gives it and to whom, and at what situation. Boss giving positive feedback to an employee once a year in private meeting is of course good, but is that enough? - I think you already know the answer here, well done!

Another form of giving positive feedback is to tell that in a meeting where are others too. Client, teammates or company partners. "Our Ville here has done an amazing job on this matter" - it shows appreciation and doesn't even need to be said right to the person - it's enough if he hears someone saying that in the meeting to others.

Saying thanks for the help in person or in a meeting, recommending for others to ask from him because he knows about the thing and so on. It can be a really settle and almost unnoticable thing, but it can mean a world to the employee.

Code Review

For example in a code review, when you see that someone has written a code in a clever way you could just comment "what a nice solution here, wouldn't have thougth that myself!" - that's a place where it's concidered to give feedback about fixing something or explaining something, but because of that expectation it's an extremely good place for positive feedback - and others will see it too.

As a Boss

I have liked the way some of my supervisors, or bosses has given a feedback for me. They are referring to teammates and co-workers time to time that he has heard from the team and co-workers that they have been really happy with my work and that has been noticed also in other levels at the company.

Personal or Team Level

Why not both! Giving positive feedback is also easy to think about on a personal level, but the receiver can also be the whole team or unit. Appreciation can be given in meetings as telling publicly that this team or unit has been performing well on this and this topic. Sometimes companies also organize an cruises to reward the teams or give bonuses or extra vacation.

Summary

Here at the end I'll list couple of things to summarize it all.

Who you can give positive feedback to

• to your employee
• to your co-worker
• to your teammate
• to your boss
• to the whole team
• to the unit or part of the organization
• to whole company, to all employees

How to give positive feedback

• 1-to-1 meeting
• team meeting
• in the meeting in general
• team chat or email
• on the coffee break
• say thanks
• recommend to others
• give kudos
• give a raise, bonus or at least a new ipad :)

Remember to give positive feedback at least weekly to someone, and don't forget to give positive feedback also to yourself.