You will be able to give useful feedback to a peer or your manager and keep the relationship intact.
Priya, the bank analyst you met in lesson 1.2, took over the SME survey from her colleague Marcus on Friday (an invented example). His handover notes did not say which clients had already been contacted, and she needs to tell him without making the next handover awkward.
Feedback to someone who reports to you has a clear script, because giving it is part of the job. Feedback to a peer or to your boss feels different. You have no authority over them, you will work with them tomorrow, and your manager writes your appraisal. So most people say nothing, and the same problem comes back every week. There are two directions to handle: feedback across, to a peer, and feedback up, to your manager. The situation, behaviour, impact (SBI) structure from lesson 7.1, "Describe the behaviour, not the person", still does most of the work. What changes is how you open the conversation and where you have it.
A peer has not agreed to hear your views on their work, so feedback that arrives unannounced can feel like an ambush. The fix is to ask permission before you start. A permission question does three things. It warns the person that feedback is coming. It names the topic, so they know it is about one thing and not their whole performance. It also gives them a choice. Almost everyone says yes, and once they have said yes they listen differently.
Priya opens with: "Marcus, can I share an observation about Friday's handover?" He says yes. She goes on in SBI form: "Your handover notes for the SME survey didn't show which clients had already been contacted. On Monday I called two of them again, and one asked whether our team talks to each other." She ends with a suggestion: "Could we add a 'contacted' column to the handover sheet?"
She keeps it about the sheet and the clients. She does not call Marcus careless with handovers. She also raises it the first time it happens, instead of waiting until the third time. Don't save feedback up until a problem has happened several times.
If the peer says "not now", respect that and ask when would suit. Pushing ahead after a no defeats the point of asking.
The order for a peer is this: ask permission and name the topic in one question. If they say not now, ask when would suit. If they say yes, describe the situation and the behaviour, state the impact, and finish with a question or a practical suggestion.
Feedback to a manager carries more risk, so frame it around two things: a goal you both care about, and the effect on your own work. You are asking for something that helps you do the job they need you to do, and you are not assessing their performance. The core phrase is "it would help me if".
Say you want client reports right first time and assume your manager does too. Last week the priority moved from the Lim account to the audit pack on Wednesday afternoon, and you had to rush the Lim report on Thursday (an invented example). The version most people want to say is a complaint that the manager keeps changing priorities at the last minute. A workable version sounds like this: "I know we both want client reports right first time. Last week the priority moved from the Lim account to the audit pack on Wednesday afternoon, and I had to rush the Lim report on Thursday. It would help me if we could agree the week's top two priorities on Monday, and if you could flag any change as early as possible."
That request starts from a shared goal, describes one specific situation, states the effect on your own work and asks for a concrete change. A manager can agree to it without feeling attacked, because nothing in it questions their judgement.
Kim Scott, in her book Radical Candor, argues that good feedback combines caring personally with challenging directly. She says most people fail by holding back the challenge to protect the relationship. With a manager, the caring part shows in the shared goal and the respectful tone. The challenging part is the clear request for a change.
Where and when you give feedback matters as much as how you give it. Choose a private moment soon after the event: a one-to-one, a short call, or a quiet word after a meeting. If you wait weeks, the details get fuzzy and the feedback starts to feel like a grudge.
Never give critical feedback in front of the person's team or a client, whatever your relationship. This applies to peers and doubly to managers. Even mild public criticism can cost someone face. A person who feels embarrassed rarely takes in what you said, and criticising in public makes you look like you are scoring points.
Chat and email are poor channels for critical feedback, and lesson 2.3, "Why your message sounded ruder than you meant", explains why. Do it in person. If that is not possible, use a video call.
In some teams and cultures, even a carefully framed direct statement is too blunt, especially when the feedback goes upward. Erin Meyer, in The Culture Map, describes how cultures vary in how directly they give negative feedback. In more indirect settings, criticism is often softened, given privately and wrapped in suggestions. In those settings, a question or suggestion that lets the other person reach the conclusion themselves can work better.
For the priorities example, the indirect version might be: "Would it be useful if we fixed the week's priorities on Monday, so I can plan the client reports around them?" It carries the same request without stating the problem. Your manager understands, and nobody has to admit anything went wrong.
Whether you are direct or indirect, the request still has to be specific. A vague suggestion to "communicate better" is too indirect for anyone to act on. Lesson 8.1, "Low-context and high-context communication", shows how to tell which approach a colleague will read the way you intend.
Think about your manager and one thing they do that makes your work harder. Before you work out the words, find the goal you both genuinely share, because that's the sentence the rest of the feedback hangs from. Then consider how your manager usually takes suggestions, directly or indirectly, and whether a one-to-one is coming up soon.
Write down how you would give your manager one piece of feedback, starting from a goal you share and from your own work.
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