For a leader, giving feedback—both when things are going well and when they aren’t—is one of the most fundamental aspects of the job. Mastering this skill means that you can knock down two of the biggest barriers preventing your reports from doing great work—unclear expectations and inadequate skills—so that they know exactly where to aim and how to hit the target.

The live 360s are so useful because individuals become accountable for their behavior and actions to the team. Given how much freedom we grant employees, along with the general “don’t seek to please your boss” climate, this co-responsibility provides a safety net. The boss doesn’t tell the employee what to do. But if the employee acts irresponsibly, he will get feedback from the group.

If you’d like to try the live 360 for yourself, here are a few tips:

Length and location: A live 360 will take several hours. Do it over dinner (or at least include a meal) and keep the group small. We sometimes have sessions with ten or twelve people, but eight or fewer is more manageable. For a group of eight you’ll need about three hours. A group of twelve could run to five hours.

Method: All feedback should be provided and received as an actionable gift following the 4A feedback guidelines outlined in chapter 2. The leader will need to explain this in advance and monitor it during the session. Positive actionable feedback (continue to . . .) is fine, but keep it in check. A good mix is 25 percent positive and 75 percent developmental (start doing . . . and stop doing . . .). Any nonactionable fluff (“I think you’re a great colleague” or “I love working with you”) should be discouraged and stamped out.

Getting started: The first few feedback interactions will set the tone for the evening. Choose a feedback receiver who will receive tough feedback with openness and appreciation. Choose a feedback provider who will give the tough feedback, while following the 4A guidelines. Often the boss chooses to be the first to receive.

Live 360s work because of our high talent density and “no brilliant jerks” policy. If your employees are immature, have bad attitudes, or lack the self-confidence to show public vulnerability, you might not be ready to run these events. And even if you’re in a state of perfect readiness, you’ll need a strong moderator who makes sure all feedback falls within the 4A framework and steps in if someone says anything out of line.

Getting publicly ripped apart sounds like torture. Each time I go to a live 360 I’m nervous. But after you get started, you see it will be fine. Because everyone is watching, people are careful to be generous and supportive in the way they give the feedback—with the intention of helping you succeed. No one wants to embarrass or attack you. - Larry Tanz, VP of content.

Whether criticism or praise, it’s a leader’s job to give their team feedback all the time. But every person on the team should be hearing more about what they did well than what they could do better, or they’re going to feel deflated and unmotivated. And if you can’t find more compliments to deliver than criticism, that’s a failure in leadership—either you’re not coaching the person sufficiently, or you’ve tried and it’s not working, which means they should no longer be on the team.

These rules help your team to feel safe—especially if you practice them consistently. Consistency is one of the most important and underrated aspects of being a leader. A person can’t feel safe at work if they’re apprehensive about what version of their manager they’re going to encounter on any given day. So if you’re the boss, you need to be steady, controlling your moods so you don’t end up taking out that morning’s squabble with your spouse on a server with a wrinkled shirt.

This is the ideal—but let’s be honest: every once in a while, you’re going to mess up. When you do, apologize. There’s an inherent intensity that comes with being passionate about what you do, and on occasion, it can get the better of you. I’ve certainly expressed exasperation and disappointment in ways that weren’t textbook illustrations of how to handle a correction in the workplace. But every time, I’ve made sure to apologize—not for the feedback itself, but for the way I delivered it.