This document introduces feedback personas as a framework to improve giving and receiving feedback. It describes six common personas: the Mother In Law, Perfectionist, Hothead, Friend, Teacher, and Emo. These personas are plotted based on two axes - how much they help others and avoid conflict. The Mother In Law, Perfectionist, and Hothead personas primarily help themselves, while the Friend, Teacher, and Emo personas aim to improve others. Each persona is defined by its characteristics and an example is given of feedback provided in that style. The document suggests using this framework to identify feedback styles and improve skills.

1. Feedback Personas
A fun & simple framework for improving
your own and your colleagues’ feedback

2. Everybody has their own feedback-
style,
which makes a lot of feedback advice
irrelevant.

3. What if you had a fun, mutual language,
such as personas, that you can identify
with.

4. And improve your feedback from there.

5. Insights and MBTI have done that for
personalities in general.

6. So we wondered: Could we do it for
different feedback styles?

7. Turns out:
YES WE CAN!

8. We’ve created a feedback-persona
framework, using our experience in
implementing a feedback culture in
over 100 companies.

9. For our framework: We’ll look at two
axis.

10. 1. How much you will help others

11. 2. How much you avoid conflict

12. Let’s start with the most common personas:
Those that mainly want to help themselves.

13. Mother In Law Perfectionist Hothead
Bad Personas

14. The Mother In Law
EFFECTIVENESS
CONFLICT-SEEKING
TO HELP OTHERS
This kind of feedback giver is very good at passive
aggression. They don’t directly say what they mean,
but make a very obvious statement about someone
else doing it the right way.
Example:
When your blog post is too vague, but they refer to
another person’s blog post to show it’s perfection
instead of giving you direct feedback: “Anna’s blog
was great. It was nice that she finished it on time. Her
blog made a lot of people smile. It was direct, to the
point and very informative. I loved reading it, she did
an amazing job.”

15. The Perfectionist
EFFECTIVENESS
CONFLICT-SEEKING
TO HELP OTHERS
This person does not care about other people’s personal
development. They think the end result of the project is way
more important. They have a hard time giving clear instructions
because they feel like no one will be able to do it as good as
them. So, they let others mess around a little bit, just to do it all
over again in the end.
Example:
You have made a presentation for something you’re both
working on. You see the other person has redone some of the
slides, containing squares with comments. They sent you an
email saying “I went over your presentation and it was good. But
I did go with another angle for some slides. Correct the
comments. Thanks.”

16. EFFECTIVENESS
CONFLICT-SEEKING
TO HELP OTHERS
This person is not used to giving feedback, but when they
do, they are extremely angry and act very emotionally. It’s
hard for them not to raise their voice or give punishments.
Example:
When someone did not deliver a project on time: “Tom, why
the hell was this project not in my inbox yesterday? I
thought I asked you to finish it before 6 PM. I seriously can’t
ask you anything, you will definitely hear about this in your
evaluation!”
The Hothead

17. Let’s move on to the better ones.
Those whose aim is to improve
others.

18. The Friend The Emo The Teacher
Good Personas

19. EFFECTIVENESS
CONFLICT-SEEKING
TO HELP OTHERS
The most important reason this person gives feedback is
to improve the relationship you have. They refer to your
personalities a lot and try to create harmony above all
the rest.
Example:
When someone’s presentation wasn’t too good but it’s
the colleague you’re closest with: “I think you did a great
job with the presentation! You gave clear examples and
spoke fluently. I would have done it the same way,
actually now that I think about it, I couldn’t have done it
better than you did. Awesome work!
The Friend

20. EFFECTIVENESS
CONFLICT-SEEKING
TO HELP OTHERS
Every time this person gives feedback, they want it to be a learning
moment. They clearly explain to the person what they can do better
and how they can do this in the future. This is one of the most
effective feedback personalities. It takes the right mentoring
relationship to apply this.
Example:
When someone was rude to a receptionist at a company: "Look,
you're on your way to becoming a great consultant. It’s a learning
process, and there's one thing you can do to become even better.
One of the most important things when meeting new people is your
first impression. People have formed an opinion about you in about
8 seconds. So, be nice to everyone. That way you won’t risk gossip
ruining your shot at a good general first impression."
The Teacher

21. EFFECTIVENESS
CONFLICT-SEEKING
TO HELP OTHERS
Even though the name sounds a little bit degrading, this is actually a
very effective way of giving feedback. The person always refers to
how specific situations made them feel and even suggests solutions.
However, this only works if the person can explain everything in a
rational way and does not act emotionally by crying or shouting.
Example:
When someone sent a wrong quotation to the customer: "I just
wanted to give you some feedback on what happened. I noticed
you've sent the wrong quotation to Client X and I felt a little
disappointed to discover the mistakes you made. I really want our
working relationship to be perfect and based upon trust, so it would
give me more comfort if we could introduce some sort of double
check. What do you think?
The Emo

23. If you feel like you have a hard
time giving feedback on
someone’s feedback...

24. Or, your team needs to
improve their feedback skills.

25. Use this framework to identify who
is who!