Does One Size Fit All in Feedback?
- Stoyan D. Tunkov
- Mar 25, 2025
- 3 min read
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
George Bernard Shaw
Feedback is a powerful management tool, but very often is misused.
In my experience, more frequent than not, people leaders choose not to give any feedback, mainly because lot of them do not know how to approach it. They prefer to wait for the things to get better, hoping that it will happen by itself.
This way, consequences could be dire for the team morale.
Those people leaders who use feedback as a tool, are normally going in one of two possible and diametrically different extremes - either to be as direct as possible, or doing it with a velvet glove.
Of course, being direct, short, simple and clear in communication is quite a challenge for most of us. And the main reason for that is the fear of being rude.
Being frank when giving feedback, reminds me of a conversation between my wife, my younger daughter and me during the pandemic, when my beloved one was only 5 years of age:
"Honey, would you be so kind to deal once again with the damages the time and biology did to me, using a trimmer and scissors, please?"
Five minutes later, my younger daughter stormed into the room and asked her mother:
"Mommy, what are you going to do with those scissors and the trimmer in your hands?"
My wife responded with a big smile on her face:
" I am going to make your dad look cool again."
"But, mommy, is that even possible?"
...
On the opposite side, being indirect, verbose, complicated and vague has its advantages either - it protects the receiver from being embarrassed.
If we follow the basic rules in giving and receiving feedback, normally we do not struggle to get our message across, despite the preferred type of communication that we just described.
When we give feedback, it is also crucially important to describe to the recipient in specificity the impact of his behaviour to the situation itself, something that often is missing.
The ground rules are:
Do it immediately
Focus on behaviour
Speak in first person
Do it in private
Be specific
Tell what would you do
Close with an action plan
Focus on the future
When we are on the receiving end, it is important to:
Be open and accept it as a gift.
Listen carefully.
Avoid responding and debating.
Acknowledge the giver and thank him.
Ask questions if something is not clear enough.
Put only the part that is useful for you into practice.
But nevertheless, when we want our feedback to be accepted and to achieve mastery, details are crucial.
Usually, most of us are using strategy that is more suitable to us, rather thаn the opposite side. In other words, our model is constant and does not change, no matter who the receiver is and how he communicates.
Is that the most effective way?
I don't think so. One size does not fit all.
Our model should be not the one that is most convenient to us, but the one that is most convenient to the recipient.
The goal of any feedback is to be accepted and to be followed by action which either continues the admired behaviour, or corrects the behaviour in the desired direction.
For that, it has to be accepted. It is easier to accept someone's advice when it is suited to your preferred way of communication. Which means that we have to be more verbose with the people that are more wordy, and more direct with those who prefer to be direct as well.
It sounds like a common sense, but in my experience, it is used very rarely in communication, especially when giving feedback to people we work with.
In order to be effective in giving and receiving feedback, especially from the perspective of a people leader, it is crucial to customise the strategy for each and every partner in communication accordingly, but always with a one that suits best the other side, rather than ourselves.
This way we can deliver feedback successfully, by focusing entirely on the specificities of the addressee and on the goal we want to achieve together.
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