Feedback is one of the best ways to help an employee or team member grow and develop, and it’s also one of the hardest things to hear, especially when it isn’t positive feedback.
Have you ever received feedback from your boss and the feedback was not accurate or helpful? There are effective ways to give feedback.
In Take Your Family Back, Jefferson Bethke shares how a team of psychologists from Stanford, Yale, and Columbia did a project to find the most effective feedback. They asked middle school teachers to assign essays to their students, and then the teachers would give feedback to the students. The research showed that most types of feedback were pretty similar to each other, and there was not one that showed significant improvement except one. There was one type of feedback that offered tremendous benefit to student performance. It almost seemed magical in the results it produced. There was a 40 percent increase among white students and a 320 percent increase among black students.
The feedback is one sentence.
“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know you can reach them.”
These 18 words can change a person’s life. Daniel Coyle shares, “They’re powerful because they are not really feedback. They’re a signal that creates something more powerful: a sense of belonging and connection.” This feedback shows that you are part of this group and team, and you belong here. It also helps the receiver understand that they see something bigger and better in them. It creates a future of possibility and opportunity, inviting them to go beyond where they are now.
We see God give this type of feedback to others in the Bible. It’s the feedback of belief and seeing something more and pushing them to more as he does with Gideon.
In Judges 6:12, the angel identifies Gideon as a “mighty warrior.” Gideon responds that he is the weakest clan and the least essential family (Judges 6:15). God saw something more for him and believed in him, and he had higher expectations and wanted him to live that out.
We see this when God calls Mary. God gives Mary that feedback in Luke 1:28. The angel calls her highly favored by the Lord. She was chosen for this honor because God had big expectations for her to do this task of being the mother of Jesus.
There are countless stories of God setting the bar higher for people’s leadership and capacity because he believes in them. He believes in you too. He has high hopes and dreams for you because he sees your potential and ability. That is why God gives feedback and disciplines you.
So when you give feedback, try using those 18 words before you start sharing the feedback. It helps the listener be ready to hear what you are saying and helps frame your heart and words when giving the feedback. When we share it in the context of this heart, then it’s a journey that we go on together. It encourages and supports them, and they are more willing to hear your thoughts because it comes from a place of love.
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