The "Meta-Sandwich" as a primary weapon in the B-Player playbook

Abdicate responsibility,
Signal negative intent
Rely on an echo chamber of their own hires to validate the behaviour.

In reality, true constructive feedback requires skin in the game. It requires the person giving it to care about the outcome and the growth of the recipient. When someone "meta-communicates" about the structure of feedback to soften their own delivery, or to even negate any intention of benevolent communication they are prioritising their own comfort over the team's and business's growth.

There are various ways in which you are taught to communicate feedback to people to ensure that it is constructive and will not cause issues with regards to team dynamics and mutual respect.

There is a trick that I have seen B Players use where they actually reference these approaches but with no intention to make the message more constructive.

So, for instance the "Sandwich".

To recap, this is where you give someone positive feedback, some constructive feedback which may be difficult to hear or sound quite critical, and then followed by some more positive feedback.

Now a B Player trick that I have seen quite frequently (referencing this exact technique) would be to say,

"Well, I've been told I have to use 'the sandwich', so I have to give you nice feedback, then the actual feedback I want to give and then some more nice feedback".

Now of course all this is really is a statement that they want to give you negative feedback. They are signalling that they don't mean the "nice" feedback and just want to weigh in with some negative feedback.

Now there is a group of people (quite often people that the B Player has brought in) that will say that they like this style of meta-communicating, often using phrases like:

"I just want to be told the truth" or "I prefer the matter of fact attitude".

Two aspects I would bring in regarding these comments:

Constructive feedback is very different to negative feedback. Constructive is there to try to improve or help someone. Negative will be without any suggested solution and mostly emotive comments that attack someone's confidence.

People preferring "the truth" or "matter of fact attitude". The "truth" in this instance is not the "truth", it is usually highly subjective and triggered by jealousy or paranoia regarding the B Player's own deficiencies. A "matter of fact attitude" is usually code for inarticulate use of language, usually with a low Emotional Intelligence. It's understandable that someone without a very good grasp of a language would prefer a non-nuanced message however this can equally be open to interpretation by the receiver who misses the underlying bullying of the message being given e.g. "You are bad at your job" is A1 level English. Now you could take that message and translate it internally to "You need to improve some aspects of your job" however that is not what is being communicated.

An outcome of organisational research on Psychological Safety (pioneered by Amy Edmondson) states that in a low-hierarchy, high-collaboration cultures like contemporary UK/US tech or modern corporate environments, authority must be earned through trust and competence, not enforced by rank. B Players resorting to using rank and bullying subordinates is a symptom of them not being able to earn that trust or prove their competence.

Moving Past the Dictionary

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