Author: Roger Schwarz

Have you ever used the “sandwich approach” to give negative feedback to your direct reports? You sandwich the negative feedback between two pieces of positive feedback. It’s a common method, but the sandwich approach may be undermining both your feedback and your relationships with your direct reports.

First, let’s look at why leaders use the sandwich approach and why it doesn’t work. In my work with leadership teams, the majority of leaders say they have used the sandwich approach to give negative feedback. They offer several reasons:

They think it’s easier for people to hear and accept negative feedback when it comes with positive feedback. When I ask these leaders how they know this, almost all of them acknowledge that they simply assume it. When I ask — or have them ask — their direct reports how they would prefer to receive negative feedback, almost all of the direct reports say they want just the meat — no sandwich. If you give a feedback sandwich, you risk alienating your direct reports. In addition, they are likely to discount your positive feedback, believing it is not genuine.

They assume the sandwich approach provides balanced feedback. These leaders want direct reports to understand that the negative feedback is only part of their performance evaluation. But this balance claim disintegrates when I ask, “Do you also feel the need to balance your positive feedback with negative feedback?” It is important to give positive feedback, but saving it to offset negative feedback delays the value of the positive feedback. The research shows that feedback — positive or negative — is best shared as soon as possible.

They believe that giving positive feedback with negative feedback reduces discomfort and anxiety. Less often, leaders admit that they use the sandwich approach because they’re uncomfortable giving negative feedback. It’s easier to ease into the conversation with some positive feedback, these leaders say. In fact, though, “easing in” creates the very anxiety they are trying to avoid. The longer you talk without giving the negative feedback, the more uncomfortable you’re likely to become as you anticipate giving the negative news; your direct reports will sense your discomfort and become more anxious.

Effective leaders are transparent about the strategies they use when working with others. The sandwich approach is designed to influence others without telling them what you’re doing — it is a unilaterally controlling strategy — in other words, a strategy that revolves around you influencing others, but not being influenced by them in return.

Imagine that you plan to use the sandwich approach with Alex and Stacey, two direct reports who just gave a presentation to your senior leadership team. To understand why you’re reluctant to share your strategy, take the transparency test — a thought experiment with three simple steps:

1. Identify your strategy for the conversation. Your strategy is to start with some positive feedback to relax Alex and Stacey, then give them the negative feedback — the purpose of the meeting — and then end with more positive feedback so they won’t be so disappointed or angry.
2. Imagine telling the people your strategy. You would say something like, “Alex and Stacey, I have some negative feedback to give you. I’ll start with some positive feedback to relax you, and then give you the negative feedback, which is the real purpose of our meeting. I’ll end with more positive feedback so you won’t be so disappointed or angry at me when you leave my office. How does that work for you?”
3. Observe your reaction. Do you find yourself laughing at the absurdity of making your strategy transparent? If you think “I could never say that,” it’s because the strategy is unilaterally controlling: it is an attempt to control the situation without letting Alex and Stacey in on the plan. Unilateral control strategies only work when the other people don’t know your strategy or are willing to play along. And they are less effective than transparent strategies.

You can use this three-question transparency test in any situation to determine whether your strategy is unilaterally controlling.

Avoid the Sandwich: Use an Effective, Transparent Strategy

Here’s an approach to giving negative feedback that is transparent and increases you and your direct reports’ ability to learn from the feedback:

“Alex and Stacey, I want to talk with you because I have some concerns. The presentation you gave to the senior leadership team this morning may have created confusion about our strategy. Let me tell you how I’d like to approach this meeting and see if it works for you. I want to start by describing what I saw that raised my concerns and see if you saw the same things. After we agree on what happened, I want to say more about my concerns and see if you share them. Then we can decide what, if anything, we need to do going forward. I’m open to the possibility that I may be missing things or that I contributed the concerns I’m raising. How does that work for you?”

This transparent approach is more effective than the sandwich approach for several reasons. First, by sharing your strategy and asking them if it will work, you, Alex, and Stacey jointly design the meeting process, increasing the chance that you will all learn from it. Second, because everyone knows the planned sequence of the meeting, everyone can work jointly to keep the meeting on track. Finally, by expressing that you may not have all the information and that you may even have contributed to the problem, you shift the meeting from one in which you’re simply telling Alex and Stacey what you think to a meeting in which all of you are exploring together what happened and planning how to move forward.

This transparent, mutual learning approach doesn’t work better than the unilaterally controlling sandwich approach simply because you are saying different words. It works because you’ve shifted your mindset. That shift means thinking of negative feedback as a way to help your direct reports improve as you learn what you may be missing. It means thinking of feedback as a way for you and others to make informed choices together. Giving negative feedback transparently means respecting your direct reports, not controlling or alienating them; makes both your negative and positive feedback feel more genuine to your direct reports; and lowers your discomfort and their anxiety.

You are holding your weekly team leadership meeting. You are discussing with your direct reports how to handle the project delays that have caused the team to miss its quarterly numbers. You know that Ted — one of your direct reports — contributed to missing the numbers by missing two key deadlines. You’ve seen this kind of behavior before from Ted, and you’ve seen the team’s frustration with Ted. You decide to not say anything to Ted in the meeting, but afterward you privately tell him that how he’s letting you and the team down.

If you’re like most leaders, you believe in the adage “praise in public and criticize in private.” So when a team member does something that negatively affects the team, you usually talk to the team member in private. But this can be a dangerous adage to follow because it significantly reduces accountability, the quality of team decisions, and your team’s ability to manage itself. As Richard Hackman said reflecting on his research, “[T]he most powerful thing a leader can do to foster effective collaboration is to create conditions that help members competently manage themselves.” Here’s why criticizing in private undermines your team, and what you can do to build a smarter team starting today.

Is your leadership team a real team — one in which members are interdependent with each other for meeting team goals? If so, they should also be accountable to each other for working together to achieve those goals, including how they rely on, work with, and make decisions together. Yet when you “criticize in private” for behavior that occurred in a team meeting or affects the team, you undermine team members’ accountability to each other. You send the message that team members are accountable only to you, not to the team. You also send the entire team the message that they don’t need to hold each other accountable — you’ll do it for them. In short, you shift accountability from the team to you.

You also make it more difficult to solve the problem. If you tell Ted his missing deadlines contributed to the team missing its goals, you and Ted may reach an agreement on how he will change his behavior, and that may inadvertently create new problems for other team members. Or Ted may tell you that other team members made it difficult for him to meet his deadlines, that it’s not his fault; at that point, you’re likely to become a human ping-pong ball, shuttling back and forth between Ted and other team members trying to understand the problem. The information to solve this problem lies with Ted and the other team members.

Why do leaders unwittingly shift team accountability to themselves? First, they’ve been taught correctly that they’re ultimately responsible for the team. Yet they misconstrue this ultimate responsibility and adopt a “one-leader-in-the-room” mindset; they believe that they are primarily, if not solely, accountable for how the team functions, including providing negative feedback to their direct reports. Second, research by Chris Argyris and Don Schön and my 30 years working with leadership teams shows that in challenging situations almost all leaders try to minimize the expression of negative feelings: If it’s difficult for you to give negative feedback, you prefer to do it in private than in the team setting.

Leadership isn’t about being comfortable; it’s about being effective, even when you’re uncomfortable. Smart leaders address ineffective team member behavior in the team setting when it occurs, or when the behavior affects the team. In the team: that’s where the information, solution, and accountability are.

In the case of Ted, you could start by saying something like, “I’m noticing two patterns in our meetings. First, Ted, this looks like the third time in a month where you haven’t met a deadline for the team. Am I off? [Assuming Ted agrees, you continue.] The second pattern is that each time Ted says he hasn’t met a deadline, I notice the rest of you — Fran, Alex, and Sheryl — sigh or shake your head, but you don’t say anything to Ted. Am I on target? [Assuming people agree, you continue.] Since these meetings are the place for solving problems and the team can’t meet its deadlines if Ted doesn’t meet his, I’m curious, what leads you not to say something to Ted in the meetings?

If you want to create a more effective team, you and your direct reports will need to change how you handle accountability. Here’s what you can do, starting today:

1. Tell your team you’ve been unintentionally shifting accountability for the team from the team to you. Explain how you see it affecting the team’s results and working relationships. Give some specific examples and ask team members how they see it.
2. State that you want a team in which members can openly and constructively give each other feedback in the team. Explain how this will help the team. Ask team members for their reactions.
3. Ask your team members what they need to hold each other accountable for how the team is working together. They may need team members to share more information about their parts of the business. They may need to learn how to discuss each other’s behavior in the team in a way that’s productive and doesn’t contribute to defensive reactions. They may need to change their mindset so they see themselves accountable to the team, not just you. They may want some assurances from other team members or you.
4. Take a few minutes at the end of each meeting to discuss how team members are holding each other accountable and how to improve it. Making this shift isn’t easy. Investing a few minutes discussing what worked well and how the team wants to improve next time will increase the chance that the team creates more accountability in the future. And that will save time and get better team decisions.