CLICK HERE FOR A PDF OF THE FOLLOWING 52 TIPS.

Focus your feedback on specific behaviors and results. Don’t comment on personality characteristics or on your guesses about the other person’s motivations.
It’s not a monologue. Encourage the person receiving the feedback to talk back. Conduct a two-way dialogue during the feedback session.
Anticipate secondary impact. While your feedback is for improving job-related performance, it will also impact on your relationship with the other person.
Follow up the results of your feedback. Recognize positive results with positive feedback. Be persistent when there is a lack of results.
Just do it. Don’t procrastinate giving feedback out of fear of upsetting the receiver.
Give feedback, not advice. If the other person asks for advice, start a collaborative problem solving conversation.
Limit your feedback to work performance. How the person behaves in other contexts is none of your business.
Ask for feedback on your feedback. Ask the receiver to summarize what you said to check for clarity. Also ask for suggestions to improve the way you give feedback.
Give feedback directly to the person who should receive it. Do not delegate the responsibility to someone else or talk behind the other person’s back.
Don’t limit your feedback to marginal performers. Give feedback – both positive and negative -- to your top performers. They will derive the maximum benefit.
Give feedback in small doses. Too much feedback is as useless as too little feedback. The receiver of your feedback may feel overwhelmed.
Make the feedback actionable. Provide clear practical action ideas that can be immediately implemented.
Don’t limit your feedback to your subordinates. Give useful feedback to your bosses and to your colleagues.
Give positive feedback as soon as possible after the event. Make it specific and sincere. Don’t dispense phony flattery.
Make your feedback specific. Illustrate your comments with authentic examples.
Be consistent. Give feedback in a face-to-face setting or through the telephone or via an email note or by leaving an online comment. Be specific and supportive in all these situations.
Be mindful about your online comments. These comments provide important information—about you. Ask yourself, “What does this comment say about me?”
Giving feedback is an important responsibility. Begin by asking yourself, “How can I help and support this person?”
Own the feedback. Make I statements instead of We statement. Don’t base your feedback on what others are saying.
Don’t take back your positive feedback. Don’t feel compelled to ask for changes in other undesirable behaviors.
Go Socratic: Ask questions instead of making feedback statements. Keep your mind open for receiving alternative perceptions about what happened.
People who over-use their talents and strengths can benefit from tactful feedback from you.
Focus on the future. Even though your feedback is based on the present and past behaviors, specify the changes and results that you would want to see in the future.
All feedback should focus on the gap between ideal behavior for achieving the goals and the actual behavior of the person receiving the feedback.
Acknowledge that your feedback is based on subjective interpretation of objective data. Give the receiver a chance to challenge your assumptions and perceptions.
Plan how you want to give constructive feedback. This involves holding a difficult conversation. Set aside enough time.
Don’t wait for a formal performance review to give your feedback. Hold frequent, brief, casual, non-confrontational feedback conversations.
Change your behavior to support your feedback. For example, if you want reports delivered on time, remind the person well before the deadline.
Praise in public. In general, this is a good idea. But some introverted people may not like public recognition. Some cultures do not value public acclamation.
Choose suitable time and place for giving feedback. Make sure that you will not be interrupted in the middle of this important conversation.
If you want to give useful feedback to your boss, wait until he or she asks for it. Or ask your boss’s permission for giving feedback.
Find out what people really want. When some people say they want feedback, they may just be fishing for a compliment.
Increase the frequency of positive feedback and decrease the frequency of negative feedback.
When giving feedback, don’t attack the other person. Don’t sound harsh and angry. Use a supportive tone of voice.
Remember the purpose of giving feedback: It is to improve performance and to produce results.
Focus on a single issue. Don’t deliver a laundry list of all wrongdoings of the other person.
When giving evaluative feedback, explain whether you are comparing the person with others or with a set of standards. The latter is more useful.
Ask for feedback from all people at all levels.
When giving feedback, avoid the sandwich approach (positive-negative-positive). It dilutes the impact of your feedback.
Use numbers in your feedback: “You pronounced the “V” sound correctly seven times and mispronounced it five times.”
Use this formula for giving feedback: I observed this recently:… I suggest this in future:…
Set up a buddy system. Encourage people to give feedback to their buddy. Also encourage them ask for feedback.
Remember the purpose of giving feedback: It is to improve performance and to produce results.
Make your feedback simple, brief, and immediate. The sooner your feedback follows the behavior, the better it is.
When several people give feedback to the same person, coordinate the message. Give the same feedback.
Don’t use “don’t” statements in giving feedback or suggestions. Explain what to do instead.
Give feedback during training and during practice sessions. Most importantly, give feedback during actual workplace performance.
Don’t give positive feedback when the performer merely meets expectations. Reserve it for exceeding expectations.
Don't give positive feedback merely to motivate the performer. Use this feedback to encourage the performer to repeat the recent behavior.
Don’t become intense and obsessive with the feedback you are giving. Offer it on a “take-it-or-leave-it” basis.
Ask the receiver to summarize all feedback you gave. Then ask the person to arrange the items in order of priority.
Feedback may involve praise, criticism, suggestions, advice, ratings, or scores. Clarify which type of feedback you are giving.