Summary

In this chapter, you learned:

• How to use evidence of performance in your feedback delivery

• How to use tangible words that describe activity and behavior

• Ways of focusing on results in your conversations

• The art of being precise and exacting instead of something else

• The difference between honesty and judgment

• The importance of using positive language to create a blueprint for success

• When and where to deliver your message

If you read only this chapter out of the whole book and integrate all of the principles into your feedback skills, you would still be streets ahead of most other experienced managers. However, what follows is a collection of structures that will help you apply these principles until they are a habit.

Take a few moments to reflect now on what you've learned so far. Here's a couple of questions to assist you:

• Which principle stood out the most for you in this chapter?

• Which principle do you already apply well?

• Which one do you most need to integrate into your conversational skills as a new manager?

In the next chapter, I'll introduce you to the first structured model that you can easily learn and use when delivering balanced feedback about overall performance in a period. And you'll meet Brian, who gave me my first gray hairs as a newly promoted manager.

Read on, intrepid explorer.