Facilitating Tough Feedback

What about some strategies for delivering critical feedback that did not work out so well, and afterwards you thought, “Oh, oh, I won’t be doing that again.”

That can be tricky. I mean, there’s some people who actually don’t ever want to hear the feedback. And I think no matter how you provide it, it’s just not going to work. And then sometimes you have to just realize the relationship is not going to work out, and that’s always an unfortunate thing.
I always assumed, because I feel like I’m a very direct person, that people should be able to understand what I’m saying, I’m just going from point A to B, and it’s easy to follow. I think sometimes the way you frame things has to be thought out a little bit more carefully. I mean, I’ve given some feedback where I thought I was being balanced, and people thought I was taking a side. And so, I think those are opportunities, when especially involving personalities and peoples, and conflict, that you need to step back and think more carefully about how can you talk about the situation in a way that the person can be heard, and not feel like they’re being accused of something.