There's a problem with the way feedback is typically delivered. Let's say the positive feedback gives the person a lift. You know what happens next. The other shoe drops. The incipient good done by the positives is squashed, squandered, like a flower garden trampled by the neighbor's heavy-footed dog. People can hardly remember the positives. 

As if it's a law of nature, the one always comes right after the other like nighttime follows daytime, thunder comes right after lightning. Or, like a hard-and-fast business practice, they both need to be presented at the same time like assets and liabilities on a balance sheet.

The problem is the positive feedback—praise, appreciation—is wasted the way natural gas used to be burned off, rather than treated as fuel. Wasted, squandered, because the positives—not just the negatives—are high-octane fuel for self-improvement.

The right way to deliver feedback? Hold off on the negatives. For a day or a week or even longer. Give people a chance to soak in the validation. At some point, salary adjustment stopped being done during a performance appraisal. It's saved for another day. Why not a new protocol for delivering feedback?

What about the individual's need to know? Certainly, the person's manager or the coach knows and is free to mention any pressing concern, without dragging the person through the mud. Often people are already aware of what they need to work on. I like to pose this question to those who struggle to accept the bundle of compliments: If you did accept this validation, what could come of it? Invariably, they say, I could do more of that and less of this—those are key changes that need made.

Back to the positives: if the person lets those sink in, then their confidence gets a boost, their morale too. There's nothing like higher confidence to make a person better. 

Cover the positives and call it a day. Quit while you're ahead.

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Interested in learning more? You're welcome to contact me.