Home STRATEGY & MANAGEMENT Team Management The Art of Giving Compassionate Feedback: Building Stronger Workplace Bonds

The Art of Giving Compassionate Feedback: Building Stronger Workplace Bonds

October 31, 2024

Interview with Dr Bruno Roque Cignacco

In this interview, Dr. Bruno Roque Cignacco, author of The Art of Compassionate Business, explores why compassionate feedback is essential in the workplace. Drawing on 30 years of experience advising companies, he discusses how supportive, constructive feedback fosters stronger relationships, increases employee productivity, and reduces defensive attitudes, offering actionable strategies for more compassionate interactions.

In the second edition of your new book “The Art of Compassionate Business,” you thoroughly discuss the importance of providing compassionate feedback to employees. Could you please elaborate on this topic?

In my more than 30 years’ experience advising companies, I have clearly observed that in some organisations, employees regularly receive feedback in a very harsh and unkind manner. This type of feedback does not contribute to developing robust and long-lasting relationships with these staff members. Instead, this feedback affects these bonds in a detrimental manner. Whenever employees receive snide remarks from either their peers or their managers, these staff members tend to adopt a defensive attitude. In these situations, these employees often experience fear (fear of being penalised, fear of being fired, fear of being incompetent, etc.).

Employees are more prone to adopt what psychologists call a freeze-fight-flight mode, which temporarily impairs these staff members’ analytical and creative skills, and renders them more unproductive and inefficient.

In these situations, employees are more prone to adopt what psychologists call a freeze-fight-flight mode, which temporarily impairs these staff members’ analytical and creative skills, and renders them more unproductive and inefficient. In other words, whenever feedback is delivered to employees in a non-constructive manner, these staff members are more prone not to take this very feedback on board, and instead resist it. Oftentimes, this feedback prompts these staff members to adopt a defensive attitude, which brings about negative effects on these staff members’ performance. Instead, some companies regularly provide employees with compassionate feedback. This type of feedback is delivered in a constructive manner. Some characteristics of compassionate feedback are:

Non-judgemental: This feedback is delivered in a non-judgemental manner. In other words, this feedback does not focus on the traits of the employee who receives this feedback (their personal characteristics, their personality, etc.), but on this individual’s actions. Compassionate feedback has a specific emphasis on how these employees’ behaviour can be improved. In other words, in these organisations, the use of feedback like “You are incompetent” should be avoided, as this detrimental feedback is focused on judging the person who receives it, which can prompt this recipient to adopt a defensive attitude. Instead, these organisations should deliver more constructive feedback, like “Your future performance can be improved this way…. Here are some suggestions that you might want take into account to improve this…” As can be seen, this constructive feedback focuses on the employee’s behaviour, with a focus on how this staff member can improve their behaviour in the future.
Positive wording: Some psychological schools of thoughts have observed that people are more prone to react more constructively to positive words, as compared with their response to negative words. When positive words are used to provide others with feedback, these words can have a powerful priming effect on the recipients of this very feedback, prompting them to experience more positive emotional states, which can affect their performance in a positive manner. For example, when managers deliver feedback to their subordinates, the former can start the interaction by highlighting some past examples of the positive contribution made by these employees in the workplace. When these positive contributions are pinpointed, managers can show their gratitude towards these employees for their contribution to work projects. Some sentences like “In the past, you contributed positively in this way… We are really very grateful for your great contribution because…” can be used for this purpose. In addition, managers can also pinpoint the work challenges that these employees currently face, but avoid wording them as problems to fix (e.g., “Your performance is negative”), but instead as opportunities to improve (e.g., “Your performance can be improved …”).
Supportive: Whenever feedback is provided, the person who delivers feedback to others should provide them with some actionable guidelines to help them do better in the future. For example, if managers deliver feedback to their subordinates, the former can use some feedback like “Your performance can be improved in this way… I was thinking about some useful ways that you might want to consider to better your future performance, such as…” In this example, these managers offer some suggestions on how recipients can improve their performance. In addition, managers can also ask the recipients some questions like “What do you think about these suggestions?” or “Do you have any other insights that can help you improve your performance” The use of these questions makes the process of providing feedback more interactive and participative, as it fosters active participation of both the feedback supplier and the recipient.

The points that you highlighted are very actionable. Are there any additional aspects from your new book that companies should consider to deliver compassionate feedback?

Thank you for your insightful question. Yes, there are some other points to highlight. When a person delivers feedback to another, the former should highlight the reasons why the recipient should improve. In other words, the feedback provided to others should be clearly justified, and thoroughly explain the main reasons that underpin this very feedback. For instance, if a manager provides some feedback like “Your performance can be improved in this way…” this manager can add some phrases like “The improvement of your performance is very important because…” This type of sentences helps the manager justify why this performance improvement is necessary.

People who provide others with feedback should justify this feedback, by using objective criteria, whenever possible. These objective reasons are external to the feedback provider. Some examples of these objective criteria are “to meet the budget objectives” or “to achieve the goals of the marketing plan.” For instance, a manager can provide feedback like “Your performance can be improved in this way… so that you can meet the goals in our marketing plan which are….” However, a person who offers feedback to employees should avoid comparing these recipients with other people (e.g., colleagues). In that sense, feedback like “Your performance can be improved in this way… because your colleague… is doing better than you” should be avoided, as this type of feedback is worded in a detrimental manner. In this example, the recipient can feel deprecated, as their performance is compared with others’.

The feedback provided to others should be clearly justified, and thoroughly explain the main reasons that underpin this very feedback.

There is another relevant point to highlight. When a person provides others with feedback, this individual should avoid adopting a pushy attitude towards them. In that sense, some feedback like “You must act this way, if not, you will…” should be avoided, as this type of feedback is often perceived by the recipient as pressurising. This feedback is often resisted by the recipient as they can see their autonomy is curtailed. Instead, a person should use a more indirect approach by using “What about you doing…?” or “You can do this…” or “You might consider acting this way…” People that provide feedback should word it in a way they themselves would like to receive this feedback if they were the recipients. In that sense, feedback suppliers can ask a self-reflection question like “How would I want this feedback delivered if I were the one receiving it?”

When feedback is delivered in person, the feedback provider should use a positive tone of voice. People who provide feedback should imagine as if they were talking to a friend that they want to help and support. Besides, the feedback provider can use encouraging words to prompt the recipient to adopt a positive attitude. Some research has concluded that the use of sentences like “I have high positive expectations about you and your performance, and I am completely sure that you are totally capable of meeting these expectations” can be very empowering, and often prompts the feedback receiver to take positive action.

Thank for your useful suggestions. Any other points that you want to highlight, based on your new book?

Thank you very much for this important question. People working for a company should regularly ask themselves some relevant self-reflection questions. Some examples of these questions are:

How can I provide feedback in a more constructive manner?
How can my feedback help others to improve their future performance?
How can I make people feel more open to receiving my feedback?
How can I provide feedback in a kind and supportive manner?
How can I use objective criteria (e.g., marketing goals) to justify our feedback?
How can we word feedback in a more positive manner?

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