Three Feedback Models - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

This resource first appeared in issue #73 on 07 May 2021 and has tags Becoming A Manager: Feedback, Becoming A Manager: Managing Individuals

A quick overview and comparison of three feedback models, similar to what we covered when we were talking about performance communications in , but includes one I had forgotten, Lara Hogan’s Feedback Equation:

Lara Hogan, an author, public speaker, and coach for managers, has a Feedback Equation that is quite simple:

Observation of behavior, e.g. “In your review of Jane’s pull request, you gave her clear advice on test coverage…” Impact of the behavior, e.g. “… this helped her improve her code, which helps with our team’s goal of better-tested code.” Question or Request, e.g. “thank you; more like that!” (for positive feedback) or “in the future, can you … instead?” (for negative feedback).

This one is a lot like Centre for Creative Leadership’s Situation-Behaviour-Impact, but with the question at the end.

There’s a lot of data to support the Manager-Tools model, but if Hogan’s or the SBI model are easier for you to start with, they are perfectly decent approaches, and much better than not giving feedback. The most important thing is to give lots of feedback, mostly positive, promptly while focusing on behaviour and impact. Everything else can be tweaked over time.