The Bad of ‘Good’ Feedback: Breadth
In my last post, I made the point that ‘complete’ feedback is better than ‘good’ feedback. I said it had two aspects:
Breadth
Tone
Focussing on breadth - Edward de Bono had a terrific technique called “Plus, Minus, Interesting” or PMI:
'Plus’: behaviour that is achieving the desire result - more of that.
'Minus' behaviour that is not working as intended - less of that.
'Interesting' is neither of the above - it provides context.
The purpose of this technique is to avoid evaluative judgments and simply focus on whether the behaviour is achieving the intended result.
Here’s an example of how this would look in practice – applied to a presentation I gave “Happy Hour Is 9-To-5” (my most popular keynote).
Plus: Very uplifting session. The positive comments ratio of 6:1 surprised me. The audience loved the easy tips.
Minus: Making the case for optimism can be threatening. Provide more detail on the upside of pessimism, such as when preparing tender bids, or safety.
Interesting: New behaviours such as giving praise can feel uncomfortable at first. Perhaps do two rounds of the exercise?
So next time you’re thinking about good feedback, perhaps give “complete feedback instead and try PMI.
As for tone - that will have to be the topic of my third post in this series.
Do you frequently give complete feedback to your team and colleagues?