Feedback is the Boss's Job
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Recently, Mark Murphy posted to the Business Execution Blog about research his company, Leadership IQ, did about feedback. Here's the lead to his post, titled, "Employees are Desperate for Feedback."
"Note to managers: Employees need a lot more feedback about their performance. According to a new study by Leadership IQ, 51% of employees don’t know whether their performance is where it should be. That’s pretty shocking, so I’ll say it again: We asked 3,611 workers across 291 companies to respond to a series of survey questions, including the question “I know whether my job performance is where it should be.” The results? 51% Disagreed while only 21% Agreed (27% were in the middle)."
That probably doesn't surprise you. "Giving feedback" is something we tell bosses to do, usually without giving them training in how to do it. Then we get surprised when they don't do it much and don't do it well.
In my Working Supervisor's Support Kit, I lay out the things you need to do in order to give feedback. Here's an outline.
Be able to describe what you expect. For performance issues, you must know the critical tasks that everyone on your team is expected to perform. You need to be able to describe acceptable, unacceptable, and superior performance in each one.
Lay out your expectations. Check for understanding.
Show up a lot. Have conversations with your team members. If you do those things you'll be able to make small corrections to performance issues and catch problems before they grow big, ugly and dangerous.
If you catch a team member doing something well, tell them so. Be specific. Tell them how that superior performance affects you and other team members.
If you catch a team member performing below standard, work together to figure out why. Poor performance might be a resource issue. It might be a training issue. It might be an issue of understanding what's expected. And, of course, it might be a conscious choice.
Coach, counsel, encourage and correct. Help set the stage for doing better next time.
Repeat as needed, several times a day.
Boss's Bottom Line
Giving feedback is an essential part of your job. If a team member doesn't know how they're doing, you have failed.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Categories: Feedback, Supervision, Boss, Management, Leadership
Tags: Supervision Boss Management Leadership
Without feedback you don't know anything. That seems pretty straightforward and easy to follow. I think the bigger thing here is that a boss needs to tell you what they expect. You need to know what to do before you can get feedback on how well you did it.
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Thanks for weighing in, Brad. I think it depends on the boss. Some fall down on the expectations part, others on the feedback part, some on both. The good news is that there are bosses that get it right.
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Great stuff, Wally. Love that you said when an employee is not meeting expectations don't assume they are a lousy employee or might have a "bad attitude". Look for the systemic causes first.
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Thanks for stopping by, Bret. When people don't perform, there's usually a reason. Most of the time it's understanding or resources or a need for training. Then your challenge is to provide what's missing. Sometimes it's choice. In that case your job is to off the opportunity for reform and redemption or deliver consequences.
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Great advice Wally. I think clearly defining the performance level boundaries are great advice so that there is no misunderstanding. Your concept of superior, average, and poor performance may not be the same concept of those levels in the minds of your employees. It's good to let them know ahead of time so that they are not caught by surprise for poor or superior performance.
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Thanks. I'm always amazed at how many supervisors can't describe good performance on key tasks. Some do it naturally. But for others, hardly anyone tells them it's important or demonstrates how to do it. That's why good role models are important.
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Hey Wally,
I think you are right on the money about staff wanting feedback. I think perhaps the reason supervisors don't provide feedback could be that the supervisors are afraid of breaking a good relationship, nervous and unsure of what to say. I find this to be true for myself as I reflect on how I want to be a supervisor/manager.
We spend so much of our time at work that any ripple could have very dangerous repercussions. I'm not nervous giving feedback to my son but to a co-worker or an intern or anyone else at work, I find I'm shy and would rather have the conversation in my head then directly with the other person.
Any advice to overcome this obstacle?
Thank you in advance.
Respectfully,
Elaine
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Thanks, Elaine. For the record, the research on feedback was done by Leadership IQ. I just quoted it. It matched my sense of how things are in the workplace.
One reason talking to team members about performance is tough is that there's very little training in how t do it. Here's a link to my post on "Talking to team members about performance" with some specific techniques from the Working Supervisor's Support Kit.
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Thank you Wally! I'll check it out and see where I can apply some of your advice in my situation.
Elaine
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Good fortune, Elaine. Let me know if I can help, or bring a question back here and let the readers take a crack at it.
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Hi Wally-- Great post. I think positive reinforcement is not utilized enough in the workplace. Employees will definitely hear from their managers if they have done something wrong, but not so much if they are doing a great job. Feedback should be given weekly, if not daily, instead of an annual performance review. No surprises!
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Thanks for highlighting the importance of positive reinforcement. Positive feedback is the great encourager, spurring team members on to better performance. But positive or negative, feedback should be specific, timely and helpful.
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This is SO important, Wally! Not only does it help correct it also gives collaborators a clue as to whether they are a good match with the company and task at hand! I think its unexcusable when a person is fired from a company that it come as a surprise! Sadly, though, this is frequently the case. Feedback is the boss' responsibility as well as the whole teams' Anything the boss can do to improve peer-to-peer openness and feedback is a plus!
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Thanks for making that point, Monica. I don't even think we need consider the extreme case of firing. If there's a surprise for either the boss or team member at the forma performance appraisal, there's something wrong.
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Wally, I can't agree with you more that employees need more feedback.
As a leader, I think that is very important to tell people when they are doing a good job and when they are doing a bad job—and, very importantly, when they are doing just an average job. While I excel with the “attaboys”, I am not so good with the “what the heck did you do that for” or my favorite “if you would just write down what I ask you to do you, wouldn’t forget what you are supposed to be doing” conversations. I am trying, but I do alas get lazy.
The problem I see with my performance is that my employees may not be getting a balanced look at their performance. Even if they have quite some time between attaboys, they may not realize that their performance is just average. And, nowadays, just average performance is not going to cut it when the “rightsizing” mafia come knocking.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this side of leadership!
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That's a good point, Sharon. Sometimes it's the "average" performers who are in danger and don't know it.
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Wally,
I like the blog and find it interesting to see how many people are basically working with out knowing if the work they are doing is on task with what the company wants. It seems to me that a company would want to give their employees constant specific feedback to encourage forward progressing productivity. It would be interesting to see how much time and money is spent making up for the errors their "unguided" employees are making.
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I agree, Kyle, it would be interesting. I don't know, though, if it's worth the time and effort to turn the accountants loose on the problem.
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Great post! I think we have all been in working situations where we haven't had management give us any feedback. I think its important how you mention to be constantly giving feedback. Its much easier to fix a problem while it is still small. So many managers wait to talk to an employee about performance when an issue comes up instead of being in contact with his or her employees more frequently.
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I think you've summarized the issue pretty well, Jennifer. Thanks for stopping by.
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I agree with everything here.. If I may add, maybe managers and supervisors are so focused on formal performance reviews or they consider it as their only avenue to give feedback. It has become a ritual on a lot of organizations; employees hate it and some managers hate giving it or are really bad at it.
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Thanks, Travis. I think that part of the problem stems from poor selection of supervisors, lack of training in both the importance of feedback and methods for giving it, and, ironically, the fact that supervisors are rarely given feedback on how they do their jobs.
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Wally,
In looking at it from a different perspective, sometimes managers/supervisors are so strapped to their desk, they lose sight of giving feedback on a regular basis - not necessarily that they don't want to or that they are incapable, it's just they get lost in their own work. Sometimes, you have to take a step back and it can be challenging when the pressure is on.
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Steven Covey's line about how the "urgent drives out the important" is surely part of the reason. In my experience, though, a big reason that managers stay at their desks is that they feel safer there than out talking to their team members and having to confront one about performance.
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