Our Story

1999: The Beginning

Back in 1999 I, Julie Freeman, (See Bio) was working as an independent instructional designer and one of my contracts was to design and develop a week-long introductory course on supervisory skills which had to include a section on “how to give feedback”.

While I had a lot of previous experience creating training for a variety of soft skills I hadn’t actually designed or even delivered anything on that specific topic so I didn’t really know a lot about it. When I started my research I of course looked at what subject matter experts had said about how to do it and I also reviewed some existing training programs in order to learn the concepts and models.

However, when I tried to apply this information I immediately ran into difficulty. The situations I wanted to create examples for were those that I knew managers were struggling with the most, which were almost invariably based on their (honest) beliefs, opinions and conclusions about someone's performance or potential.  For example, "he’s a control freak who micromanages and his employees don’t like him so he won’t get this promotion".

The three main difficulties I encountered when trying to do this were:

1. Firstly, most experts were advocating to steer clear of giving subjective feedback whenever possible. In other words, the feedback had to be objective and based on observed facts. 

2. Secondly, when it was absolutely necessary to convey subjective thoughts, the feedback should be backed up by specific negative examples of the problem performance that the manager had actually observed.

3. Thirdly, almost all the general tips and advice stated the importance of being "positive". However, they did not specify exactly HOW to do that. The exception to this (that I remember) was the sandwich method, where you place negative information between two slices of positive information.

Obviously the first problem was huge since is was a completely unrealistic argument to simply avoid giving subjective feedback. Not only are natural and intuitive opinions and conclusions that people form in their heads about someone's performance and potential almost always subjective, but they are the default way that everyone assesses any kind of performance anyway. And they carry a lot of weight in the real world. 

The second problem was that using specific examples to justify subjective feedback didn't work well. Over and above the fact that it contradicted the advice to stay positive, people did not take well to hearing examples of their negative performance. When tested, people invariably tended to take a flight or fight response to hearing them which made the feedback less effective.

Lastly, the general tips and advice for making the feedback positive were very nebulous and I couldn't figure out exactly what to do that would achieve that outcome. The one specific piece of advice that I tested about sandwiching negative information with positive information tended to backfire because it was perceived as disingenuous.

Bottom Line

In other words, the methods that were considered "state of the art" and widely accepted as the "best" way to give feedback worked fine in theory, and even made intuitive sense, but they failed miserably in practice.

This was a huge setback for me in designing and developing this section of the course because it meant that I could not provide the kind of real examples for how to give subjective feedback to successfully address difficult poor performance situations involving the most sensitive and uncomfortable information.

I therefore had no choice but to swap out these examples for easier ones that were more objectively measurable (e.g. she’s often late for work) just so the models would work. Obviously, this is not acceptable. You shouldn’t have to change reality to fit a model, the model has to work with reality or it is simply not an effective model.

After that experience my curiosity was peaked and I resolved to try to figure out why the supposedly state-of-the art advice and tips in these models were failing for the most difficult, complex, and emotionally charged poor performance or behaviour situations.

The more I thought about and worked on this problem the more of a passion it became. Eventually, my background in instructional design, psychology, and experience working with managers at all levels in organizations all combined to make the sticking points clearer and clearer. Once I understood the root cause of the problem I was gradually able to develop a methodology that overcame it.

2003: First Course

In 2003 I taught my first course about this method. It was simply called Giving Performance-Related Feedback and it was provided within a supervisory and leadership program in Ottawa, Canada.

Sal Polletta (see Bio), who is currently the facilitator for PAF training,) was the moderator of that program at the time.  He was also facilitating the "how to give feedback" topic tin the French version of the training since mine was not available since it was not translated at that point.

This was not considered a problem because the (correct) assumption was that all feedback training was similar, which is actually still the case all these years later. However, when Sal saw my material he immediately “got it” to use his words. He sought me out to tell me how truly innovative and effective it was compared to anything he had taught or seen before. And that was the beginning of our collaboration.

Evolution: 2004

We teamed up and Sal took over facilitating the training in a classroom setting in our local area. In the years since then the basic methodology has remained the same. However, how we taught it evolved over time as we got more and more feedback from participants about what worked and what we needed to change in order to improve it. The course got really excellent reviews.

At some point during this time the course name was changed to Giving Coaching Feedback using The PAF Technique to better convey the content.

2020: Everything Changed

When COVID hit in 2020, all training everywhere was put on hold. As it continued to drag on and on, the idea of online training was starting to take hold and become more and more acceptable and available. At this point Sal suggested to me that I create an online version of the classroom.

At first I was sceptical that this was possible, since the instruction was designed to involve a lot of experiential learning that works best in a classroom setting. However, at the same time, it opened my eyes to the potential that doing so would not only enable us to overcome the restrictions of in-person learning, but also make PAF available to a much wider audience that we had previously been able to reach.

It turned out to be harder and more time consuming that originally anticipated.  Firstly there was a steep technological  learning curve. Secondly, it was a challenge to  change the instructional design to work effectively in an online environment. For example, it is not possible to simply attempt to recreate experiential classroom experience!

2022: First Online Version

We published our first attempt and asked previous classroom participants and others if they would test it out.  Bottom line: it needed work.  We went though several iterations of the course, getting feedback each time. 

May 2024: Latest Online Version

The latest of the online iterations has improved to the point where we believe the online course teaches the PAF Technique as well as we could in the classroom. 

Furthermore, it appears that the online version is not only AS effective at teaching the concepts, it is MUCH MORE efficient in terms of the time it takes to do it. It also provides a lot more flexibility for participants. They can learn the concepts in 1-4 hours scheduled over several days or weeks rather than traveling to training locations and take a day or two off work

And we are still able to supplement it with live small group coaching sessions (half a day) either online or in person if practicable. This flipped classroom approach takes advantage of the best use of valuable face-to-face time by using it where it can have the greatest impact. Namely, enabling anyone who wants to be able to ask questions, interact with a live facilitator, and practice applying PAF to their own situations, to do so. 

Currently this follow-up option is only available to organizations to anyone with access to a computer, and a couple of hours to learn, at a very reasonable cost.

We hope to continue improving the course as we collect more and more feedback from students.