Teaching the Art and Craft of Giving and Receiving Feedback

• Published in: Business communication quarterly 2010-12, Vol.73 (4), p.413-431
• Main Authors: Harms, Patricia L., Roebuck, Deborah Britt
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Administrators; Assignments; Business Communication; Business communications; Employees; Feedback; Feedback (Response); Higher Education; Job Skills; Peer Evaluation; Teaching methods; Undergraduate Students; Work environment
• ISSN: 1080-5699; 2329-4906; 1552-4191; 2329-4922
• DOI: 10.1177/1080569910385565

In the workplace, the process of evaluating and discussing the performance of both employees and managers is referred to as feedback. The process generally involves a discussion of the individual's strengths or weaknesses, with suggestions on how to improve upon weaknesses. Feedback aligns workplace behavior with the overall goals of a team or an organization. Although the ways in which work teams and organizations provide employee feedback vary greatly, most formalized systems include some sort of quantitative scale coupled with qualitative feedback. To help prepare students for providing and receiving qualitative feedback, the authors incorporate feedback assignments into their courses. In this article, the authors propose two feedback models and introduce four assignments that they have successfully implemented. They describe two feedback models that take performance feedback guidelines into consideration. The models follow Foster's (2002) recommendations for providing effective performance feedback, and they can be used at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive education level to enhance the future feedback practices of coworkers, managers, and leaders. They also emphasize the importance of teaching feedback models in business communication courses through assignments and activities that provide students opportunities to practice giving and receiving concrete, action able feedback. (Contains 3 tables.)