Construction Management and Supervision Course 2008

Training of Trainers – Effective Presentations

Feedback
Feedback is constructive criticism.
The purpose of feedback is to help another person who wishes to change his behaviour to reach his
goal.

When you get feedback, you will get answers such as:
What is the correspondence between my behaviour and my intentions?
i.e. what I do and what I want to do

To receive Feedback
When you receive feedback, it is only you who decide what is relevant. Use what you can and get rid
of the rest. It is what helps you to reach your goal that is interesting for you. You don’t have to tell
me what you cannot use – i.e. your are not responsible for telling why you cannot use this or the
other.

It may be a good idea to express, that you understood the feedback – i.e. by repeating the words of
the person giving the feed back. At the same time you have a right to give your own limits as to
what you want to hear about. If some of the feedback surprises you or if you can feel that you are
you get emotionally involved in the feedback or if you feel that your reaction to the feed back will be
of consequence to you in the future – it is possible for you to postpone your reaction by saying that
you would like to think about or sleep on the feedback you just received.

It is difficult for many people to receive feedback, because they feel everything as an attack and a
question of placing guilt. If you yourself often think about who is to blame for this or that, and if
you have a tendency to construct defence speeches or attacks when somebody says something to you
it may be a good idea to practice hearing what others say rather than thinking how to defend
yourself. Practice to find solutions to what is said in stead of placing guilt.

To give Feedback
Description – not assessment
Feedback must be descriptive, not judgmental or assessing.
When you give feedback you describe what you have seen, heard and experienced. By doing that the
person who receives feedback can gain new valuable knowledge about himself which he can use to
change his behaviour.

When you give feedback it is important not to judge values or describe values. Expressions such as
“bad, below standard, unsympathetic, lazy, ridiculous, stupid, etc. express values and are not
interesting when you give feedback.. They do not help the person who receives feed back to reach
his goal. On the contrary, such expressions will block learning and further dialogue.

Objective or subjective
Descriptive feedback can either be objective or subjective and both kinds are useful as long as the
feed back remains descriptive.

When you give objective feedback you describe what you have seen or heard: “When you talk to us
you turn your back.”

Subjective feedback describes your own reactions: “When you turn your back I loose concentration.”
Construction Management and Supervision Course 2008
Training of Trainers – Effective Presentations

Other important issues when you give feedback:

• Timing: Do not aggregate your feedback and explode over little things
• Acknowledge feelings/problems: Do no ignore the other persons views or feelings
• Avoid irony or sarcasm: It may be misunderstood and create antagonism
• Be specific and realistic: It is easier to understand and remedy concrete actions
• “I-messages”: Speak for yourself. Give your own opinion
• Be precise and direct: Do not wrap your message up, so that is gets garbled
• It feels better to receive feedback, if you start and end with something positive

Why do we want to give feedback to another person?

We often give feedback to others without thinking about it. The more involved we are with other
people – emotionally or in work situations – the more we want to give feedback. It is useful to think
about why it is so:

• Do we want to punish the other person

• Do we want to change the other person
• Do we want to manipulate the other person to do as we want
• Do we want to demonstrate our insight and superior knowledge
• Do we want to demonstrate how little the other person knows
• Do we want an emotional outlet

Or

• Do we want to increase the possibilities for the other person to obtain his purpose

If feedback is to remain constructive the last objective must be true.

Why do we not want to give feedback to another person?

• We do not feel the situation is right, the time is wrong

• Norms prevent us from expressing emotions directly
• The other person’s status does not make it possible to give feedback
• We are afraid the other person gets hurt
• We are afraid the other person becomes aggressive
• We fear our intentions are misunderstood
• We cannot find a way to express ourselves suitably
• We are not certain of our observations and impressions
• We do not think the other person will use our feedback in a constructive manner
• We think the other person only wants positive feedback