I have to admit that this concept is not something I’ve read in a management book. It comes from Family Guy, the TV show. The idea is the following. When you eat the sandwich, you most probably eat it for the content (meat, lettuce, cheese, tomato, sauce). The buns are not the most interesting and significant part. However, without the buns, you would probably enjoy it much less. At least most of us would. Therefore having the buns becomes an integral part of the sandwich, even though nobody buys a sandwich for the buns.

How does it apply to business?

The same goes for giving feedback to others, up, down, or horizontally. Imagine the following. You make a mistake in a monthly report that results in a non-vital misstatement of something that is not reported to the stock exchange. An internal report for example. Your boss calls you in the office. He tells you “You messed up the last income report. Don’t do it again. Now you may leave”. Now imagine now your reaction. My guess is that among the possible ways you may feel, none of those would be positive. You may feel emotionally and/or professionally hurt. You may feel judged and insulted. You may lose motivation. You may be angry. And the list goes on.

Now imagine the following. You make the exact same mistake. Your boss calls you in the office and says: “How are you?, What are you up to lately? Started running? That’s great, I myself started a few years ago and I can assure you it was life-changing. I bet it will be for you too. Listen, I just want to tell you that we really appreciate you being with us, I’ve seen your work in the last few months and it was always perfect. I spotted a small mistake in last month’s report though. It’s not anything crucial, don’t worry, I just want to understand if this is something that we can avoid in the future. If you need any help, let me know, I’m happy to support you on this. If there is something you want to bring to my attention about the background of this, please feel free, my door is always open. Anyways, I don’t want to steal any more of your time, I just wanted to make sure there are no critical issues. We all make mistakes, it’s just important no to do them often 🙂 . Anyways, how about coffee sometime later? Let’s catch up! And let me know how your running develops! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did! Have a lovely day!”

Wow, even writing it makes me feel good. Imagine how you would feel. Potentially you would feel better personally, as you have found a common interest with your manager (running). I don’t think you feel insulted and demotivated. You might even feel good that you’ve got feedback, which is usually highly appreciated by everyone but is rarely in abundance from anyone. The message was clear, you’ve made a mistake, you will surely try to avoid it in the future, but it was nicely sandwiched into a wider, more pleasant discussion. Often people miss having direct feedback on their performance. If it is too direct though, it might hurt. Either because it was too crude, or there was no social packaging. When somebody receives feedback, often you appreciate more the time you’ve been dedicated than the actual feedback. Just as you enjoy the sandwich with the buns more than just the meat.

Wider application

The same applies to when you pay bonuses for example. The amount is in most cases decided before you actually announce it. If you just send an e-mail, saying thank you, here is your 10.000 USD (I assume here it is a nice bonus to receive and is above your expectations), you will be happy for a few days. If you on the other hand receive a 30-minute complement sandwich where the meat is the 10k and the rest is nice words about your outstanding professional performance, your friendly personality, your great connection to team members, that is a sandwich that will leave its taste in your soul for weeks if not months. The company cost is maybe 0,5% higher, but doesn’t it make a difference?

It is indeed important to give feedback to your team. The “packaging” is the important part though. Don’t give just meat, have it nicely wrapped in a tasty bun with some additional ingredients and served hot rather than cold. If you offer them a compliment sandwich, it would be much easier to digest and it would have a better effect than direct feedback or a score. This also makes sure nobody gets hurt and human relations are kept. You can try this also on kids, they react to it extremely well 🙂