In their Harvard Business Review article "The Feedback Fallacy" (Mar-Apr 2019) by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, a fascinating table labeled "The Right Way to Help Colleagues Excel" subtitled "If you want to get into the excellence business, here are some examples of language to try":
| INSTEAD OF | TRY |
|---|---|
| Can I give you some feedback? | Here's my reaction. |
| Good job! | Here are three things that really worked for me. What was going through your mind when you did them? |
| Here's what you should do. | Here's what I would do. |
| Here's where you need to improve. | Here's what worked best for me, and here's why. |
| That didn't really work. | When you did x, I felt y or I didn't get that. |
| You need to improve your communication skills. | Here's exactly where you started to lose me. |
| You need to be more responsive. | When I don't hear from you, I worry that we're not on the same page. |
| You lack strategic thinking. | I'm struggling to understand your plan. |
| You should do x [in response to a request for advice]. | What do you feel you're struggling with, and what have you done in the past that's worked in a similar situation? |
... in other words, invert the instinctive viewpoint and comment on Self rather than Other!
And note that this is the complete opposite of common conversation, when it's mostly me-me-me and so rarely you ...
(cf. Feedback Fallacy (2019-03-19) and references therein ...) - ^z - 2019-04-05