Quick! When do you give employees feedback? If your first thought was, “let’s see, how often do we conduct performance reviews?” then you might be underestimating the power of feedback to align personal achievements with organizational goals. The real answer to how often you provide feedback is every day, whether you intend to or not.

Feedback is a consequence of behavior and it is ongoing. It is a form of communication and it is impossible to not communicate. Your spouse arrives home, and upon entering the room, warmly greets you with “hello, honey.” You say nothing, and you just communicated. Or consider Ted, a project manager for a software company who had a great idea for how to streamline an accounting program that would make it more user-friendly. He excited his team members and they got to work. At the next weekly meeting, Ted had an issue to discuss with the group, something that had nothing to do with the new initiative, which was never mentioned at the meeting. What did Ted communicate to the team? What was the feedback? Ted said nothing about the new software program, yet he spoke volumes about the sense of urgency the team had responded to after the first meeting. How could Ted have reinforced their efforts, maintained a sense of urgency, and still have addressed the more pressing issue? “I know you have all been kicking into gear and that’s exciting, but something has come up. I can’t wait to here about your progress, so let’s schedule a separate meeting.”

If you realize you are always communicating, then the questions become, “what do I want to communicate, about what, and when?” Below we offer guidelines for how to use feedback to bring out the best in your peers and employees.

1. Realize the power of positive reinforcement. A positive reinforcer is any consequence that maintains or increases behavior. An organization that relies heavily on positive reinforcement, from monetary incentives to positive comments, produces discretionary effort. Discretionary effort is when people go beyond what is expected, they show initiative; and that is the difference between real commitment and compliance. We believe that positive reinforcement is one cornerstone in building a culture of execution. People who work in organizations heavily laden with positive reinforcement for the right behaviors know what they should be doing, feel invigorated, and don’t want to leave.
    
2. Feedback is most effective when it is specific to behaviors and outcomes and occurs soon after behavior or goal attainment. What does this say about quarterly or year-end reviews? Don’t expect year-end reviews to have much of an effect on behavior because, to the extent a year-end review provides consequences for behavior, those consequences have occurred long after the behavior. Bridge quarterly or year-end reviews with ongoing feedback. This also has the added benefit of “no surprises” during the formal review session.
    
3. Global feedback should always be referenced by specific behaviors. “You are doing a good job, keep up the good work.” What behaviors did you observe that led you to make that global statement? Reference the specific behaviors or outcomes: “You are doing a good job. I noticed that you are generating more ideas about the new initiative and that you are following through on them.”
    
4. Know the power of informal, on-the-fly feedback. “Doug, I really liked the way you presented your proposal today. It was well organized and ended with a concrete plan of action.” Note that the feedback was immediate and specifically tied to behavior.
    
5. Don’t blend positive reinforcement with a negative message. “That was a good quality report, BUT I wish you would get things done more quickly.” Your intent was to positively reinforce “quality” but you dimensioned the impact of the reinforcement by linking it with a criticism. Make your point about efficiency some other time.
    
6. Feedback should be truthful and tied to standards. Nothing will kill the power of reinforcement quicker than insincerity. And you lose the effects of performance enhancement when you reinforce marginal performance in the interest of “being supportive.”
    

The use of positive feedback is a no cost investment that will reap enormous returns. When the right behaviors are reinforced, people know what is expected of them and they will be motivated to work hard to achieve goals that are consistent with the mission of the organization. Positive feedback also affects the bottom line by increasing discretionary effort, reducing costly turn-over and absenteeism, and establishes a culture marked by high morale.

In Part II of this article, we tackle the unpleasant task of delivering constructive feedback.