Yesterday, I was meeting with a senior manager – we’ll call him Saresh – and he was telling me about a problem he had with one of his employees, Chris.  Saresh told me that Chris hadn’t been sharing information with the team.

Saresh also told me about a number of other small problems dating back months and years…As we talked I realized that there weren’t a few problems, but a lot of issues; and they weren’t small, some were rather big and impactful.

When I asked Saresh how Chris handled it when he gave him feedback, Saresh said that he hadn’t given much feedback.   Saresh felt it was always better to give positive feedback, so he never commented on the things that were going wrong.  Not surprisingly, the behavior and problems continued.

We talked about how important it was for Saresh to sit down with Chris and address the issues.  He agreed to do just that, but I had forgotten to tell Saresh, “Just a few at a time.  Don’t overwhelm.”

So, Saresh sat with Chris and he noted a lot of the problems – some dating back as far as two years prior.  This, as you can imagine, led to a complete overload of information.

What went wrong?

Think of how a body needs to be nourished.  We need healthy foods day in and day out.  Our bodies benefit from moderation and consistency.

Feedback is just the same.  Many employees are literally starving for feedback.  They want the positive feedback, we can think of it as the dessert, and they also want the feedback that will help them grow, perhaps the veggies.  Employees benefit from consistent feedback in small doses, just enough to ‘digest’.  This is the type of feedback that they can apply to make changes and streamline and improve practices.

An overload of feedback in one sitting is like Thanksgiving dinner at my mother’s house.  My body becomes overloaded and sluggish.

Have you even been overloaded or starved for feedback