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Communication · a life skill

Advanced Feedback Framing

the feedback you're holding back

A researcher walked around with a smudge on her face. Of the 155 people who saw it, 4 said so. The hardest feedback isn't the kind you phrase badly. It's the kind you never give, because you guess they'd rather not hear it. Mostly they would.

  • Challenging to start
  • Life-Changing impact
  • Learn it: 30 days
  • For the thing nobody's told them
what we hold back, and what they wanted
How few people speak up, and how much the other person wanted them to. 155 open circles, 4 filled: of 155 people who noticed a smudge on a researcher's face, 4 told her. A 0 to 10 scale: people about to give feedback guessed the other person wanted it at 5.18; the people receiving it said 6.98. Two bars: 48% of givers chose to give feedback; 86% of receivers chose to get it. 155 people saw the smudge 4 told her. The other 151 let her walk around with it. How much do they want to hear it? (0–10) 0 5 10 Givers guessed 5.18 They said 6.98 Chose it, when they could Chose to give it Chose to get it 48% 86% Pairs of friends, in the same situation.

All figures from Abi-Esber, Abel, Schroeder and Gino, 2022: five experiments with 1,984 people.

The habit

Try it now.

  1. Check they can fix it

    A smudge, a typo, a habit in meetings: yes. Their height, or a choice already made and paid for: no. Only the first kind is worth saying.

  2. Distrust your guess

    You'll feel they'd rather not know. People reliably guess too low, and more so when the stakes are higher.

  3. Swap seats

    Ask: if it were me with the smudge, the typo, the habit, would I want to be told? That question closed the gap best.

  4. Ask first, then say it plainly

    “Can I mention something?” gives them the choice most of them would make anyway. Then one sentence: what you saw.

  5. Say what it does, and offer help

    Why it matters to them, then something you can do. Then stop talking and let them decide.

    Fixable? Swap seats. Ask, say what you saw, what it does, and offer help.

When to break the rule: when it can't be fixed, or it's too late to matter, saying it helps you more than them. Let it go.

The planner

Should you say it, and how?

Think of the thing you've noticed and haven't said. Answer three questions, rate how much they'd want it, then rate it again from their seat. If it's worth saying, the opener builds below.

Start from an example

1Is it worth saying?

Can they do something about it, soon?

Do they know already?

How much rides on it for them?

2Swap seats

3Build the opener

The call

Your guess, then your own seat

Your two ratings 0 10 ○ your guess · ● your seat

Your opener

    Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. The call is a rule of thumb drawn from the study, not a verdict on your situation. You know them; it doesn't.

    The study behind it

    We guess low, and say nothing.

    Nicole Abi-Esber, Jennifer Abel, Juliana Schroeder and Francesca Gino ran five experiments with 1,984 people. In the first, a researcher with a visible smudge on her face asked passers-by to fill in a survey. Of the 155 who noticed it, 4 told her.

    Later studies paired up friends and gave one of them something fixable that the other could point out. The would-be givers guessed their friend wanted to hear it at about 5 out of 10. The friends said about 7. Given the choice, fewer than half of givers spoke up; most receivers would have chosen to hear it. The gap was wider when more was at stake.

    What closed it best was a simple question: how would you feel in their place? People who answered it gave feedback more often. And in the last study, a speech contest, those who were given less feedback improved less.

    The feedback in these studies was about small, fixable things. Telling someone a hard truth about their marriage or their career is a different conversation, and nothing here says it will be welcome. It does say your guess about how they'll take it is probably too low.

    The giver

    guessed how much they'd want it5.18

    chose to give it48%

    The receiver

    said how much they wanted it6.98

    chose to get it86%

    Out of 10, and the share who chose to, in pairs of friends. Abi-Esber, Abel, Schroeder and Gino, “‘Just letting you know…’ Underestimating others' desire for constructive feedback”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2022.

    The idea

    Why it works.

    From the giver's seat, the cost is vivid: the awkward second, the chance they'll be hurt or think less of you. The benefit to them is vague. So you round their wish down and stay quiet, and they walk into the meeting with the smudge.

    Swapping seats makes the benefit vivid too. You'd want to know, so you start to expect that they would. Asking first takes care of the rest: if they really don't want it, they can say so.

    When it goes wrong

    Habits that help.

    • Say it while it can be fixed. Before the talk, not after. The same sentence after the fact is only bad news.
    • Say it in private. A quiet word by the lifts, not across the table in front of the team.
    • Keep it to what you saw. “Slide 3 has last year's figure” is easy to hear. “You're always rushing” isn't.
    • Make it easy to say no. “Want me to mention it?” means they're never ambushed, and nearly everyone says yes.

    Go deeper

    Keep going.

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