Familiar situation: You’ve been assigned to a group of fairly useless people, but have to finish an important group assignment. Along the way, you try to point out errors made by your ‘friends’, but fear being to harsh and thus jeopardizing the grade. Oh woe! But fear not, as you might have heard of many techniques on how to handle such situations. Here are my favorite ones, among which you will also find the “Sandwich”.
Thinking Aloud: Instead of telling someone how crap they are directly, take the subtle route by asking yourself questions… aloud. Bad example: “No, that’s a bad idea. It will ruin the introduction.” Good example: “I wonder what effect this will have on the introduction.” Let them do the thinking-through, and guide them towards what you wanted to say. If it comes from them, it didn’t come from you to blame.
Sandwich: When giving negative feedback on an idea, wrap it nicely between two slices of positives. Bad example: “Your arguments are rather weak.” Good Example: “Your introduction is great, but the arguments are rather weak. I also must add, your use of scientific language is impressive!”
Not bad… but let’s connect the two: “Your introduction is great, but I wonder wether the arguments are strong enough, I’m not sure of that. Your scientific language is impressive, though!”
The wrapping could be anything, just make sure you won’t criticize it later on.
- Correct Me If I’m Wrong: My favourite sentence in such a situation. If you have an idea that’s better, bring it out. Say something like “I have another idea, I need your help to see if it could work”, then present the idea. Follow it up with “I wonder if that would work better, or do you guys see any problems?”. Always ask for a factual treatment of pros and cons, but do it politely. Get them to do the talking, lead the discussion and sit back as results trickle in.
Those are three quick tips you can implement at your next group assignment or meeting. What are your favorite techniques for handling people?
July 5th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
thanks for the tips, i will definitely use them for the next meeting on monday with my group…
October 26th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Interesting tips.
A suggestion for “The Sandwich Technique” - substitute the word “but” with the word “and”.
The word “but” automatically negates any positives that may have been stated.
For example, “You’ve written a wonderful paper with a sound premise, but the spelling is atrocious.”
Contrast that with, “You’ve written a wonderful paper with a sound premise and it will even be better when the spelling is corrected.”
Read each statement slowly with your eyes closed. Pay attention to how it makes you feel. Which one motivates you more? Which one makes the compliment genuine?
This is a process, one that takes time to integrate. Be patient and have fun noticing how a change in wording makes a difference.