In this solo podcast episode, leadership coach Rob Anderson introduces a seven‑step feedback framework designed to make feedback constructive rather than destructive. He begins by highlighting the common pitfalls of feedback—either sugar‑coated and ineffective or weaponized and resentful—and then outlines the model: Purpose, Observation, Impact, Pause, Suggestion, Support, and Follow‑up. For each step, Rob provides clear definitions, practical language, and real‑world illustrations ranging from a backyard gardening scenario (a hired worker failing to water flowers) to workplace situations (interrupting a colleague in a meeting). He emphasizes the importance of pausing to give the receiver space, offering collaborative suggestions rather than commands, and pairing feedback with tangible support. The final component, Follow‑up, is operationalized with a “3‑7‑10‑21‑30” rule, specifying check‑ins at 3, 7 (or 10), 21, and 30 days to reinforce habit formation. Throughout, Rob promotes an upcoming online workshop where participants can practice the model on their own challenges, and he directs listeners to his coaching site (stanstewartcoaching.com) for courses, discovery calls, and further resources. The episode concludes with a call to share the podcast and connect with him for coaching.
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Hey, welcome to the Stand Sure Podcast. My name is Rob Anderson, and in this podcast, just one of the things I enjoy doing is helping you lead with confidence, helping you communicate with clarity, and show up with strength. Today I want to talk about one of the most underused superpowers that you have not only in leadership, but that you have in just day-to-day interactions. And it's how to give effective feedback. Now, by the way, I do have an online course that's coming out on this, and I'm gonna do a workshop. And I'm really looking forward to doing the workshop because then I can get lots of people together in that workshop We're going to do it online so it doesn't matter where you are. But we're going to do that workshop online and it gives you that opportunity to work with other people, other leaders that are maybe struggling with the same thing that you're struggling with. Now, let's face it. Most feedback, it either gets sugarcoated and it's useless or it gets weaponized and it turns into resentment. And neither one works. So what I want to do in this podcast is walk you through a model that I've been using for probably— oh, I actually hate to say this— probably 30 years now. It's probably giving away my age, but I want to walk you through this model and you can remember it by saying— People often interrupt people, so stop following. That's not what it is. It's people often interrupt people, so stop flapping. People often interrupt people, so stop flapping. All right. And what it breaks down to is purpose, observation, impact, then pause. Suggestions, support, and follow-up. As we start out with purpose, before you ever say a single word, you have to ask yourself the question, what is the purpose of this feedback? Are you trying to help that person grow? Are you trying to correct a behavior? Are you trying to reinforce behavior? You're trying to point out a mistake. Now, over on my other podcast, One Dive at a Time, which regrettably I have not updated in quite a while, I've taught this as a feedback mechanism for dive leaders. But it also can be used for day-to-day feedback, whether that's in the workplace, whether it's at home, if it's with your kids. Your spouse, your significant other. But you want to think through that purpose and then get it in your mind what you want to say. And so you might say something like, hey, I want to talk to you about something because I believe it's going to help you grow as a leader and avoid issues down the road. Or you could be a little more, a little more on target. And we'll say that— well, I'll put it into domestic terms, okay? I'll put it into terms of working out in the backyard, doing gardening, planting flowers, and things like that. You might— and maybe you gave— maybe you hired somebody to take over a task. Maybe it was a spouse or significant other, and they didn't Do it quite— in fact, they didn't do anything on how you directed them to do it. And by the way, if you can't tell by the wind chimes in the background, I'm in the backyard. I love sitting out here and doing the podcast when I'm— and this is my favorite time of year to do it. So I'm looking at— I'm looking around the garden area and I'm looking around my lawn, and the person that I hired to do my lawn And to water the flowers while I was gone didn't do what they needed to do. And right now I've got— I've been going around trying to water all those flowers. So the feedback session that I'm going to have with this person— and by the way, I'll talk to him before I air this— is I want to talk to you about— I want to talk to you about— let me start over again here. Hey, I want to talk to you about watering the flowers. That was something I had asked you to do or that I had hired you to do while I was gone. So, that's the purpose. Here's what I want to talk to you about. Now, the next part of that is going to be the observation. When you do the observation, you want to keep it factual and you want to keep it neutral. And this is not where you interpret somebody's behavior. It's where you name what you saw and heard. Okay. In my situation, when I came back, I noticed that almost all the flowers had died, and they looked like they, they had not been watered. If this is in a business setting, it could be, I noticed in yesterday's meeting you interrupted Jason 3 times. While he was trying to explain his point. So at this part, there's no judgment. There's no guessing what their motive might be. It's just simple observation. Impact. This is where you help them connect the dots by explaining how that behavior affects others, how it might affect the team, might affect the mission, or in my case, How it affects what my backyard looks like. In my case, the impact would be most of the flowers have wilted and died, and if I can't revive them, then I'm going to have to replace all of the flowers. In a business setting, it might be When that happens, it shuts down collaboration and it makes others hesitant to share openly. And, and this is where we're hoping that empathy enters the conversation. You're not just correcting, but you're trying to connect. Now, that next part is critical. This is where you pause. You give them space. This does a couple of different things. One is it keeps you in control of the conversation. Don't try to answer. Don't wait 1, 2, 3 seconds and then try to fill in the dead air. Be comfortable with that dead airspace. This is something I've had to really learn how to do as a coach, is to make sure that I give plenty of space for my clients to talk. Not in a feedback session, but just in a regular coaching session where they might, you know, where they're talking about an issue or they're talking about something that That they're trying to unravel or something that they're trying to progress in. It's giving that space. You let them respond. You give them space. And maybe this is something they were not aware of. Maybe they were having a rough day. Maybe there was something that, you know, that diverted their attention. But feedback should feel like a conversation, not like it's a courtroom verdict. Once you give them space to talk, they might come back. The guy I hired to water my flowers and take care of the lawn while I was gone, he may come back and say, I totally forgot that I was supposed to water the flowers. I took care of the lawn. It could be, For whatever reason, the water got, got turned off on that day, which I'm pretty sure it didn't. But, you know, I don't, I don't know how to respond later on in the conversation unless I can understand that person's point. Once they've had a chance to reflect and they've, they talked to you, where you leave them a pause, you know, they'll actually talk to you about it. You offer a path forward. Now, you can do a couple different things here. One of the things I always try to do is, what can we do together to resolve this? What can we do together to make this right? Or what can we do together to move forward? But you also may want to have suggestions. Now, depending on what happens with the person who's supposed to water my flowers, that's gonna change, you know, that's gonna change what my response is, what the suggestions are. And, you know, as they're talking during that period where you allow the pause and you allow them to talk, you're looking for flag words that can help out with those suggestions. So, for example, if he says, there was a hole in the hose, or, I couldn't get the sprinkler to work properly, whatever it happens to be, I would offer, and hopefully together we could offer suggestions to correct it next time. Maybe his offer is, hey, I'm really sorry. I completely forgot about it. I'm sorry. I do the suggestions. What can we do together to resolve this? And he says, I will come over and help you plant new plants. In a business setting, suggestions might be, as the person who's giving the feedback, I might say, one thing that might help is waiting a full 2 seconds before jumping in, before jumping into that conversation. It gives space and it signals respect. And see, at this point, it's— you have to understand, you're not handing down commandments. You're offering tools. You're wanting to come together on that resolution. And that now leads us into support. Feedback without support Is just criticism. It's complaining. It's griping and moaning. It's chewing someone's behind. So support might look like, hey, how can I help you with this? It could be, in my situation, if we do have to replant flowers, I'll pick up the flowers. Can you meet me at 8 AM on Saturday and we'll replant those flowers together? This is where you become a partner in their growth, not just a narrator of what their flaws are. And then finally, we wrap up with a follow-up. A one-on-one Doesn't work unless there's real change, and that real change happens through consistency. In a working environment, and what I coach my leaders is that you use a 3-10— I'm sorry, 3-7-10-21-30 rule. 3 days after we have the conversation, I'm going to do a follow-up. I'm going to do a phone call. I'm going to do an email. I'm going to do a face-to-face. I'm going to call my garden guy 3 days afterwards. Hey, we're meeting up on Saturday morning. Make sure that we get those flowers planted, right? Now, the 7 and 10 is interchangeable. And I use 7 or 10 because of— mainly because a lot of times I coach leaders who have shift Yeah. And so, if they're like on a 6 and 3 schedule or a 5 on 4 schedule or a 4 and 3 schedule, whatever happens to be, 7 days may wind up on that person's weekend. So, we use a 10-day, either a 7 or a 10-day. And then, a 21-day is more of a solid check-in because it should be— it should become more of a habit at this point. And finally, at day 30, this thing should be solidified. So again, using purpose, observation, impact, pause, suggestion, support, and follow-up. This model works in the boardroom, it works in the break room, it works in the backyard, it works in classrooms, it works in cubicles. And in the case of my divers, it even works out on the dive boat. Again, I'm going to give a full Workshop on this where you get a chance to use the model. You get, you get feedback on how well you're using the model, and it's, it's good for situations where— and what I prefer is that you actually come with a problem to resolve in that workshop. I hope you found this helpful today. If you do, please share it. Share with a teammate, share with a leader, share the podcast out there. I could really, really use some followers at this point. I hate to beg, but I'm begging. You can also visit stanstewartcoaching.com where you can shoot me a message. I've also got a link on there where you can sign up for a Got a bird flying over by real quick there. Where you can sign up for a free discovery call. I'd love to get on the phone with you, set up a Teams meeting. If you're local, go have a coffee and have an opportunity to help you wherever it is that you're growing at. All right, thanks so much. And with that, I am out.
