#117: How to Structure a Feedback Conversation

Giving feedback is one of the hardest parts of managing people, and most of us were never taught how to do it. In this conversation, we sit down with Katie O’Brien Ceccarini, Certified Executive Coach and author of Fearless Feedback, to unpack what actually makes a feedback conversation work. We start with mindset (Katie’s reframe of feedback as “food in someone’s teeth,”) and why she stopped calling it feedback altogether, choosing instead to think of it as information that helps someone succeed. From there we move into her “Headline, Observation, Ask” framework, walking through what a good opening line sounds like versus the kind that puts people on the defensive before the conversation even starts. We also get into when feedback is actually worth giving, using her “instance, pattern, and role-fit framework” and how often managers should be sharing it, including her 5-to-1 ratio and the idea of staying “high cadence, low stakes” rather than letting things build up. We close with a quick tip on how to receive feedback better, too. Our Guest: Katie O’Brien Ceccarini Katie O’Brien Ceccarini is the Founder of Endurance Management Coaching, a Certified Executive Coach, and author of Fearless Feedback: Everything Managers Have Never Been Taught About Feedback. Over the last 20 years, she’s managed, trained, and developed thousands of people — from scaling Customer Success at Yelp to leading Learning & Development at Opendoor. Today she works with organizations like eBay, LinkedIn, and AllState to build high-performing teams with the power of feedback. References: Katie O’Brien Ceccarini LinkedIn profile Fearless Feedback: Everything Managers Have Never Been Taught About Feedback (Amazon Link)