Should you use the Feedback Sandwich?
Well, the short answer is NO! Nein. Niet. Nej. Nei. Ei. Tidak. Không. Nie. Nee. Não. Nahin. Hindi. Aniyo. And no in all the other languages I haven’t got time to research!
For those on the receiving end, it’s often called the s*!t sandwich – for good reason!
What is it?
It’s when people sandwich the negative feedback you really need to deliver between two pieces of positive feedback. People think it’s easier for people to hear and accept negative feedback when it comes sandwiched in between positive feedback. Top tip: it’s not!
Leaders often believe that giving positive feedback with negative feedback reduces discomfort and anxiety. Top tip: It doesn’t!
It nearly always creates more anxiety.
Our brains have exceptionally good ‘threat detectors’ (our amygdalae – we have 2 of them), and we soon learn to ‘smell’ the ‘sandwich’ coming a mile off!
Our brains are wired towards a negativity bias to keep us safe – hence we so often leap to the worst-case scenario. We’re wired to focus on the incoming ‘threat’ as that’s what we need to protect ourselves from: fight, run away or hide (fight/ flight/ freeze).
The problem is that our amygdalae find it difficult to tell the difference between an incoming feedback sandwich bomb whistling its way towards us and a real threat to our physical safety, and we react in the same visceral way as if we were physically threatened.
Add into the equation that negative feedback can adversely impact our emotional and mental wellbeing, especially so when poorly delivered, and you have an incendiary cocktail that goes very nicely with the s*!t sandwich!
As a leader (or peer, parent, or pal, for that matter), the feedback sandwich technique undermines you, your feedback, and your relationships with whomever you’re giving ‘sandwich’ feedback to.
Often leaders use the sandwich approach because they’re uncomfortable giving negative feedback. It often feels easier to ease into the conversation with some positive feedback. Top tip: it doesn’t work!
This “easing in” usually creates the very anxiety we want to avoid, and your direct reports or team-mates or whoever you’re giving ‘sandwich feedback’ to are extremely likely to become even more anxious. Especially if they can also sense your discomfort (which our brains’ mirror neurons are highly likely to pick up on).
A s*!t sandwich example
I remember an old boss of mine used to use ‘sandwich feedback’ nearly all the time – which was pretty astonishing considering she was an organisational psychologist and quite frankly should have known better! Goes to show these myths perpetuate – hence this email trying to point out what is and is not best practice.
Worse, she used to deliver the first piece of ‘positive feedback bread’ with a supercilious smile on her face (which obviously isn’t recommended, to be clear! 😂), turn ‘serious’ when the negative ‘main filling feedback’ was served, then return the smile for the final piece of ‘positive feedback bread.’
I hated it. The team I was in hated it. We used to call it the smile-slap-smile technique because it really felt like a metaphorical slap. And it felt exactly like that every single time.
It became so bad that every time she came out with some positive feedback, I used to inwardly flinch in anticipation of the ‘slap’ that was to come – and sometimes even physically wince.
Also, not I or my team heard any of the ‘positive feedback bread’ either side of the negative ‘filling.’ We dismissed and ignored it because we knew it was just the softener to deliver the ‘main course.’
Plus, because of how our brains work in reality, when we detect a possible incoming threat, our brains’ natural tendency is to focus solely on the threat, so everything else tends to fade away.
Our brains then divert blood from the pre-frontal cortex (which we use for logical thinking, planning, inhibiting behaviours, etc) to other areas, preparing us to fight, run away or hide, so our capacity to think logically, plan, and respond calmly rather than react is reduced and often negated entirely – not a great outcome in the workplace (or most places for that matter!).
So what do you do instead?
That’s a good question! These are all critical leadership skills that have a huge impact on engagement, team relationships, productivity, and much more. To do the subject justice requires a longer piece of work.
However, in a nutshell, best practice is to keep positive and negative feedback as two distinct and separate conversations – as close to and as relevant to the event as possible.
If you have to have a difficult conversation, just have the difficult conversation.
Be specific, be straight and be honest (that does NOT mean being blunt, btw!); stick to the facts, and be solution-focused i.e. what behaviour or outcomes do you want to see instead (feed-forward, as Marshall Goldsmith eloquently terms it), rather than just the ‘you’re not good enough’ vibe.
Use non-inflammatory language to start the conversation (tailored to what the person receiving considers non-inflammatory and not blunt, not what might be ok in your world).
Ideally you want to create a “Catch People Doing Something Right” feedback culture on a day-to-day basis, so that when it comes to having the difficult conversation, people already feel that you acknowledge and appreciate them for what they do, so are generally more accepting of the tougher developmental feedback.
These are critical leadership skills that every single leader and manager needs to have as part of their skills repertoire.
Unfortunately, many leaders never get taught these skills and are often thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. Regrettably, many people only manage to learn the bare minimum to simply survive and keep their heads above water, which frankly doesn’t cut it in today’s workplace with savvy and demanding staff who often have high expectations of their leaders.
Feedback conversations have always been a challenge, and ‘The Covid Years’ made things worse as they left a bigger gap in new and middle managers’ skills as a lot of the often minimal amount of training leaders might have had was shelved.
Our proven Giving and Receiving Feedback and Difficult Conversations training gives managers and leaders the skills they need. We’ve had independent benchmarking of our program that delivered a 26% increase in productivity, according to managers who were surveyed 9-12 months AFTER delivery of our Giving and Receiving Feedback program.
For more information on our customisable Giving and Receiving Feedback program and Effective Conflict Management training, get in touch for a conversation.
All our in-house programs are tailored to each group’s and organisation’s specific requirements and challenges, and we weave real-life scenarios into the programs for participants to practice.
