7 key ingredients to ensure feedback is effective

Having an "a-ha" moment can be a sign of intuition, but you can hone that skill by clearly defining your goals, then getting curious about patterns or other information you may be taking in subconsciously that can be brought forward to shape the future you want, says Laura Day, a practicing intuitive and author. Be careful to check your biases, judgments or prejudices, adds Eboni Banks, an intuitive coach and healer, because they can cloud your intuition and take you off track.

Put it into practice: Feelings "are the least accurate intuitive tool," Day says, urging leaders to rely on bodily senses and look for repeating patterns that may be trying to get your attention. "Once you start to see things showing up, it's a sign that you are primed and queued to receive more information," Banks adds.

Leaders can improve at giving constructive feedback to their direct reports by practicing, writes Lisa Kohn, who notes the feedback should be specific, timely, supportive, about behavior (not the leader's opinion) and invite a response. "By sharing supportive, positive feedback you allow others to feel good about themselves and what they're doing, and to get even better at it," Kohn writes.

Put it into practice: Take time before any feedback session to thoroughly prepare by reviewing the key ingredients and ensuring you're in the right emotional frame of mind, Kohn advises. "If you're angry, count to ten, or twenty, or one hundred. Wait until you can talk calmly and the other person can hear you."

Technology -- from email to remote meetings -- can be a source of stress for employees, but when used correctly, those same communication tools can ease that stress when they're used to develop training and conflict resolution programs and processes, writes Edward Beltran, the CEO of global leadership development and training company Fierce. "When it comes to reducing burnout and increasing employee well-being, getting to the true root of stress must play a fundamental role in any solution," Beltran writes.

Put it into practice: Encourage employees to use wearable technology to track biometrics such as an increased heart rate in certain situations to help them better understand their stress responses, Beltran writes. "Better communication with ourselves, and what our bodies are telling us about our stress, is an essential step to reducing workplace conflict."

Supporting Non-Profit Support. Seventy percent of you work for organizations that support employees contributing to non-profit causes (with 53% of you having formal programs at work for doing so). That 70% jumps to 85% when there are clear limits on how much time people dedicate to such support.

If your company does support time contributions to non-profit causes, it may be worthwhile to formalize your program. First, doing so sends a strong message to employees that you support those causes. Second, it can put in place limits on how much time people dedicate to those programs.

You may as well get credit for supporting things you're already doing and avoid the headache of not being clear about boundaries. Formalize and communicate your programs now to increase participation and minimize confusion.

-- Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, which includes TITAN -- the firm's e-learning platform. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a West Point graduate and author of three leadership books: "One Piece of Paper," "Lead Inside the Box" and "The Elegant Pitch."

Christina Dean, founder and CEO of Redress and The R Collective, has been fighting textile waste in the fashion industry for 17 years, and even though data shows the problem worsening, Dean says she realizes "change happens slowly and that our work is just a few little sprinkles of goodness at this point in time." Dean says she's not discouraged, though, echoing their saying at Redress: "I'd rather be a pirate than join the navy. And this sums up our spirit, so each day remains a hustle in the office as we're always on our toes for the next roller-coaster ride."

Captive undomesticated cats respond more quickly to familiar human voices than unknown voices, indicating they share domesticated cats' ability to recognize caretakers' speech, according to a study in PeerJ Life & Environment. This recognition is triggered by proximity rather than domestication, according to the analysis of cheetahs, cougars, lions, tigers and other cat species, which also determines that animals of varied social cognitive abilities use the skill.

I used to have a cat named George, who would come whenever I called him. At least, that's what I thought. The new research on how cats recognize the voices of their caretakers may mean that George just knew my voice, and when I called, it usually meant food.

I'll keep my sentimental memory of him bounding out of the woods at dinnertime because he knew his name and not just my voice. Either way, it's a fascinating study and may explain why all the stray cats in the neighborhood come to our yard (that and the food we tend to put out for our indoor-outdoor kitties).

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