The tasteless sandwich

A few years ago, someone came up with a magical "sandwich" approach to give for-improvement-feedback to someone: say something nice, say what you really need to say, and finish up by saying something nice again. This became known as the feedback sandwich. And it became really popular.

The idea was that for the person receiving the message, it felt better to hear it smothered between two nice things, and the receiver would be more motivated to improve. But the sandwich did not become popular because it worked ! It became popular because it made the manager feel better about himself, and created the impression that "delivering" the feedback message was easier.

Giving someone straight feedback remains so difficult for so many managers. Someone recently admitted that he was not comfortable looking his subordinate in the eyes when giving feedback ! Others fall into the other extreme and pride themselves in being at ease telling anyone anything straight into their face ... whatever the consequences.

Giving feedback is not about delivering a message. We have email for that. The challenge with giving clear feedback - around needed improvements - is that for it to work, it needs to turn into a dialogue, into a real conversation. Not smothered in between layers of "positive" messages that have nothing to do with what needs to be addressed. You cannot prepare for or script out what will happen. You don't know what the other person will reply or argue or disagree with. It is exactly this unpredictability about how the discussion will turn out that you need to become comfortable with.

Creating a sandwich, or sugarcoating, or adding sweet topping does not make the feedback process more effective. It only destroys the taste, and the message. Practice dialogue instead.