Takeaways from Training Program on "Giving and Receiving Feedback"

A couple of weeks back, I attended one-day in-house training program on "giving and receiving feedback". Mr. Viswanathan V delivered this program extremely well. Following are my key takeaways:

• Make feedback specific (e.g. "When you , it's a problem because . What I would like you to do in future is )
• Take responsibility while giving feedback; let it be YOUR feedback, based on YOUR information/observation.
• Give balanced feedback. Positive feedback boosts morale while negative feedback improves performance.
• Avoid delay. 
• Make your expectations clear to your subordinates in the beginning so that you can refer to those expectations while giving your feedback.
• Link your feedback to company goals and suggest actions that can contribute to those goals.
• If the person receiving feedback, cries then give him/her time and space to express and then proceed gradually. If her/she gets angry then show empathy and partial acknowledgement before proceeding further.
• If the person receiving feedback disagrees with the facts in the feedback then provide examples/evidence. On other hand, if he/she questions whether there is any problem itself then specify the consequences of his/her behavior.
• While receiving feedback, adhere to following rules:
• Try to control your defensiveness.
• Listen to understand.
• Try to suspend judgement.
• Summarize and reflect what you hear.
• Ask questions to clarify.
• Ask for examples and stories that illustrate the feedback.
• Never hurt their ego.
• Not every feedback is correct.
• Be approachable.
• Check with others to determine reliability of feedback.
• If you get no feedback, then actively seek feedback from everyone you interact (boss, peers, juniors, clients, etc.).
• If you get feedback in public then ask for feedback in private.
• If you get rambling feedback then summarize and/or ask pointed questions.
• If you get vague feedback then ask probing questions.

Thanks to Mr. Viswanathan, for sharing his wisdom during this training program. Also the films shown were quite informative. I have been recommending this program to my company colleagues since giving/receiving feedback is very much integral part of our work.