Positive and Negative Feedback: Which Should Come First?

What happens when you give positive and negative feedback at the same time

When you share what went well and what didn't in the same conversation without stating your overall conclusion first, the positive points tend to sound like a warm-up for criticism. It also becomes harder for your team member to tell how important the negative points are. These two kinds of comments are also called "strengths and areas for improvement" or "positive and negative feedback."

Take, as an example, a manager and a team member talking for about 10 minutes about a proposal due to Client A tomorrow. Depending on how the manager puts it, two things can happen.

• What comes after "but" is what sticks. If you say, "The proposal was well done. But the cost table...", what your team member is most likely to remember is the cost table. Words like "but" and "however" put the weight on whatever follows them.
• A request for a fix sounds like a passing comment. If you slip in "It'd be nice if you could take another look at the costs" between compliments, your team member can't tell whether to fix it this time, whether next time is fine, or whether it's just your personal preference. It's left to them to interpret, so the proposal may go to the client without being fixed.

KAKEAI's survey of 10,000 employees in Japan asked whether meetings with their manager lead to action afterward. The 6,074 people who said they lead to action about half the time or less were also asked to choose up to 5 reasons why. 13.4% chose "I don't feel a need to act now (low urgency)," and 11.0% chose "I have the information to decide, but I'm not confident (anxiety, fear, hesitation)." 8.3% chose "I don't want to, because it clashes with my self-image or who I want to be." Both "I don't feel a need to act now" and "I have the information, but I'm not confident" were chosen more often than "it clashes with my self-image or who I want to be."

Wrapping criticism in compliments is a way to keep the person receiving it from feeling hurt or pushing back. But the wrapping blurs which point is the main one, and makes it harder to tell whether something needs fixing right away. The positive points also sound like a warm-up, so it's harder for your team member to feel confident that "it's fine to keep doing it this way."

Let your overall conclusion decide the order

We recommend that you don't decide in advance whether positives or negatives come first, and instead let your overall conclusion decide. Start by saying whether the work can move forward as is or needs fixing first, and how many points you have. After that, start with whichever side is the reason for your conclusion.

• If the work can move forward as is, the reason lies in what went well. Start with what you'd like them to keep doing, then cover what to change from next time.
• If it can't be submitted until it's fixed, the reason lies in what didn't go well. Start with what you'd like them to change, agree together on how to fix it, and then tell them what you'd like them to keep as it is.

If they've heard your conclusion and how many points you have, your team member can listen to the positives without bracing for criticism.

You don't need to match the number of positive and negative points in an effort to be "balanced." Try reframing the positives as "what I'd like you to keep doing" and the negatives as "what I'd like you to change." Both are things you share to help with the next piece of work. Seen that way, two of one and one of the other is fine, and so is only one kind.

What should be consistent is not the number but the level of detail. Compare "It was good overall" with "The second row of the table on page 3 was good." The one that helps with the next piece of work is the one that tells them where. For positives too, say which part of which piece of work you mean.

When there are only positives or only negatives, don't force yourself to find the other kind. Sharing just one side is enough.

Examples: how to share positives and negatives in different situations

How you share positive and negative points changes from the very first sentence, depending on whether the work can move forward as is or can't be submitted until it's fixed. Here, the example is a manager who has just finished reading a proposal due to Client A tomorrow. Adjust the order and wording to fit the person and the work.

When it can move forward as is, and fixes can wait until next time

Start with your conclusion and how many points you have.

For what you'd like them to keep doing, explain which part helps and how, then pause before moving on.

Say "Next" before moving on to what you'd like them to change. Make it clear whether it's about this time or from next time.

Ask your team member whether your understanding is right.

Finally, confirm together what to keep and what to change.

When it can't be submitted until it's fixed

When the work can't be submitted until it's fixed, it's better not to open with compliments. Until they hear your conclusion, your team member will be listening to the positives without knowing whether the work can go out. Start with your conclusion and how many points you have.

Don't be indirect about what you'd like them to change. Go in this order: the fact, what you're concerned about, and a suggested fix.

When you've finished, ask about their circumstances yourself. Once you understand them, revisit the fix too.

Decide on the spot when you'll look at the revised version.

Once you've agreed on the fix, share what you'd like them to keep, as a separate topic.

When you're asking for a fix, sharing a positive point has one more purpose. When people revise their work, it's hard for them to know how much they should change. If you tell them what to keep, you prevent them from rewriting parts you didn't comment on and losing what was good.

Kakeai, KAKEAI's 1-on-1 service (Kakeai AI 1on1), has a field where, before a 1-on-1, the team member chooses what they want from their manager for each topic they'll discuss. In 300,000 1-on-1 sessions extracted from Kakeai's records, for the topic "work progress and how to proceed," "I want us to think it through together" was chosen 17.0% of the time. "I want specific advice" was 13.2%, "I want to hear your opinion" was 12.9%, and "I want you to listen" was 7.5%. For this topic, "think it through together," "specific advice," and "hear your opinion" were each chosen more often than "I want you to listen."

When your team member asks "How was it?"

When your team member asks for your reaction, answer with your conclusion first. If you start thinking out loud with "Hmm, it's not bad, but...", they'll be left waiting uneasily for your verdict. If you haven't finished reading it yet, tell them when you'll get back to them.

When you give feedback over chat

When the work can move forward as is, chat works fine. Write your conclusion, what to keep doing, and what to change from next time on separate lines.

When the work can't be submitted until it's fixed, we recommend writing only your conclusion in chat and switching to a call. In text, it's hard to ask about your team member's circumstances in the moment.

Don't connect positives and negatives with "but." Keep them separate.

Between positive and negative points, don't link them with "but," "however," or "though." End the sentence first. If you change topics by saying "Next" or "Now, something separate," what came before is less likely to sound like a warm-up.

When you ask for a change, say how important it is. Change requests fall into 3 types: "fix this before submitting," "change this from next time," and "this is my personal preference, so it's your call." If you don't make the distinction, your team member tends to treat every comment as equally important.

What to avoid when sharing positive and negative feedback

What to avoid when sharing positives and negatives is deciding the order or the number in advance, so that the format takes priority over the substance of the work.

• Applying "praise, criticize, praise again" to every situation. This order is widely known as the feedback sandwich. But KAKEAI doesn't recommend applying one order to every situation. When the work can't be submitted until it's fixed, your team member doesn't know your conclusion while they're hearing the opening compliments. When the work can move forward as is, the reason to start with what you'd like them to keep doing isn't to soften criticism. It's because that's where the reason for your conclusion lies.
• Matching the number of positives and negatives, or the time spent on each. Setting a ratio, such as "3 compliments for every criticism," is another well-known approach. But positives you go looking for just to make the numbers match tend to be vague, like "overall" or "you worked hard." You don't need to match the time either. It often helps to keep what to keep doing brief, and use the rest of the time to work out the fix together.
• Deciding you must always end on a positive note. This is recommended out of consideration, so your team member can go back to work feeling good. But ending on a compliment tends to leave what happens next unclear. Use the end of the conversation to confirm together what to keep and what to change.

On the other hand, also avoid going so far in being direct that you list only what to change and end the conversation without asking about your team member's circumstances. If there were positives and you don't mention them, your team member won't know what to keep doing.

How to look back on whether your feedback got through

You can't tell whether your positive and negative feedback got through just from their expression in the moment or a "Thank you." Look back on your conversation using these 3 questions.

• At the end of the conversation, did the two of you agree on what to keep and what to change?
• In the revised version, did what you asked them to change actually change, and did what you asked them to keep stay? In the proposal example, that means the table now shows how maintenance costs are handled, and page 1 is unchanged.
• The next time they did the same kind of work, did they apply what to keep and what to change without being asked again? That means the next proposal opened with the client's words, and the two of you were able to review the draft 3 days before it was due.

In KAKEAI's survey of 10,000 employees, 9.4% said their meetings with their manager lead to action every time. Of these people, 75.5% feel their meetings lead to results. Among people who said their meetings lead to action about half the time, 15.7% feel their meetings lead to results. People who said their meetings lead to action every time are more likely to feel they get results.

Drawing on its experience supporting more than 3 million 1-on-1s and the results of its survey of 10,000 employees, KAKEAI believes that how well you shared positive and negative feedback is judged by what your team member does in the next piece of work. If it wasn't applied to the next piece of work, ask your team member whether something made it hard to act on. Then change either the order or the wording, and share it again.