You will practise giving and receiving feedback with a partner before you do it for real.
Jun Kai is an account manager at a digital agency in Paya Lebar (an invented example). He needs to give feedback to a designer who keeps missing internal review deadlines, and he wants to practise the conversation with a partner before he has it for real.
Knowing the situation, behaviour, impact structure is different from saying it aloud to a colleague who is frowning back at you. Most people who freeze or ramble in a real feedback conversation already knew what they wanted to say, but they had never said it to a person before. This exercise is a rehearsal. You and a partner each bring a real feedback situation, practise giving it and receiving it, and refine the script until it sounds like you. The whole exercise takes about 25 minutes, and your partner can be a trusted colleague, a friend, or a classmate on this course.
Pick one real piece of feedback you need to give. It can be for a peer, someone who reports to you, or your manager. Choose something with real stakes, because practising on something trivial will not prepare you for the conversation that matters.
Change the details to protect the people involved. Swap names, change the project, move the setting. Your partner needs to understand the situation but doesn't need to be able to identify anyone, and if your partner works at the same company as you, change more details. Jun Kai renames the designer "Rachel" and moves the story to a different client, a furniture client.
Next, write a draft script of under 80 words using situation, behaviour, impact and a question, the structure from Lesson 7.1, "Describe the behaviour, not the person". Jun Kai's draft reads: "In the review for the furniture client yesterday, the designs came in at 4pm instead of 10am. That left me two hours to check them, and I missed a wrong price on the second banner, which the client spotted. What has been making the morning deadline hard?"
Brief your partner in two or three sentences on three things: who they are playing, what that person did, and how that person is likely to react. Jun Kai tells his partner: "You're a designer, good at the work but a bit stretched, and you've been missing internal review deadlines. You'll probably say the brief changed late and get slightly defensive."
Sit facing each other, or use video if the real conversation would happen on video. Open the way you would for real, including any permission-asking opener such as "can I share an observation?" from Lesson 7.3, "Give feedback to your peers and your manager". Don't read the script word for word. Glance at your notes if you need to, but try to say it, and finish by asking your question.
Your partner reacts the way the real person might, including some defensiveness. If your partner is too nice, you are only practising the easy version. Realistic responses include:
pushing back with an excuse, such as the brief changing on Tuesday a long silence "okay" said in a tone that means the opposite
As the giver, you stay calm, return to the facts, listen to the explanation, and look for a fix together, over a conversation that runs for about three minutes.
In Jun Kai's first round, his partner, playing Rachel, says the brief changed on Tuesday afternoon and she was redoing everything. Jun Kai says he didn't realise and that it is partly on the agency too, but the client still saw the wrong price, so they need a check somewhere. Rachel asks, "So you're saying it's my fault?", and at that point Jun Kai loses his thread and can't get back to his question.
After the first round, swap roles so your partner gives their feedback and you receive it, defensiveness included. Playing the receiver is useful in itself because you feel how each phrase lands, and it gives you practice for Lesson 7.4, "Take criticism without defending yourself", seen from the other side.
After each round, spend a few minutes on two questions: what helped the conversation, and what made it harder. Name specific words. "When you said 'always', I got defensive" is more useful to your partner than "it felt a bit harsh."
In their debrief, Jun Kai and his partner work out a better reply to "So you're saying it's my fault?" He can say no, he is saying they need a way to catch mistakes like this, and ask whether, if the brief changes late, she could send whatever she has at 10, even if it is not final.
Then run a second round in each role. This makes a big difference, because you get to try the fixes you just discussed. After two rounds, Jun Kai's final script reads: "Can I share something about the furniture client review yesterday? The designs came in at 4pm instead of 10, which left me two hours to check them, and I missed a wrong price that the client spotted. I know the brief changed on Tuesday, and that didn't help. What would make the 10am review workable when briefs change late?"
Compared with his draft, the final version opens by asking permission. It acknowledges the late brief up front, so the late brief doesn't come up later as Rachel's defence, and it ends on a question aimed at a solution. All three changes came from what went wrong in Jun Kai's first round.
You are finished when you have a final script, revised after two rounds, that you would be comfortable saying to the real person. Expect your own final version to look different from your first draft in a similar way, shaped by the moments your partner pushed back.
Do the role-play twice in each role, then write the final version of your feedback script.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).