Welcome to Manager Tools. Today's topic, skip level feedback. Here we go. Almost everybody listening to the show knows that giving feedback is one of the most

important activities that effective managers engage in. And yet we get questions all the time and this is when it comes up in

conferences and it's all around hey can I give feedback to my skips and I think folks wonder whether they can or not,

and we'll certainly answer that because the answer is definitely you can.

But then there's all sorts of issues or concerns that folks have and maybe rightfully so.

So maybe it's time to talk about that specifically on a podcast.

I agree, yeah.

So this cast is about how to do it. We've got five steps, five

recommend, not steps really, but recommendations. Here they are. Yes, you can

give feedback to Skips. We'll explain why, why it makes sense in light of performance communications.

Point two, we're going to say you can use the standard model, which is our four-step model.

Hey can I give some feedback when you do X, here's what happens, thank you or can you

do that differently.

We are also going to recommend to step three, you can use the starter or the peer models of feedback

because those are generally thought or felt to be less confrontational and that goes to step 4 or point 4 which is we promise you underestimate the fear that your skips have of you.

Most managers who have skips, people who report to managers who report to them

underestimate enormously the amount of fear there is

for people two levels down.

And so using the peer or the starter model

would be a way to reduce some of that.

And then last point, maybe very obvious, but if you're direct who is one of your skip's managers

isn't using feedback, it's going to be harder because the skip won't know what you're doing or why you're doing it.

...