Bosses: Give Frequent and Usable Feedback
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Most of the managers I've known have no problem talking to team members about performance as long as performance is good. That changes when performance is not so good.
Then they come up with all sorts of reasons not to. Here some of the them
"I don't want to micromanage."
"They know what they're doing. I really don't need to talk to them."
"They're experienced people, they don't need supervision."
"If they don't know that they're doing poorly, then they shouldn't be in that job."
"I don't want to damage their confidence."
"I believe you should hire good people and then leave them alone."
There's not a single good reason on that list. Your job is to improve the performance of your team and your team members. If you've got someone who's not performing, your challenge is to help them improve. That includes giving feedback, even when that's hard for you to do.
You can make it easier by doing a few simple things.
Start by showing up a lot. If you're managing a virtual team, make that "touching base" a lot. That sets you up to have frequent conversations with your team members.
When you have frequent conversations with your team members, they expect you to talk to them. Then conversations are just a routine part of everyday work life. But if you only show up occasionally, your team members will expect a conversation with you to be a) about their performance and b) not a happy experience.
When you have frequent conversations with your team members, you're more likely to catch them doing good things. Mention it. You're more likely to catch them working hard. Thank them.
When you have frequent conversations with your team members, you also catch problems early. The sooner you catch a problem, the easier it is likely to be to solve. I call that the Dinosaur Principle.
Problems are like dinosaurs. They're easy to kill when they're small. But if you let them grow up they can eat you.
Conversations and feedback should be frequent. Make the feedback usable, too.
This just makes sense. If the feedback isn't helpful, why waste everyone's time giving it. Take the time and attention to do it right.
Include coaching to help team members improve performance. Include consequences so the team member knows what will happen if performance improves and what will happen if it doesn't.
Boss's Bottom Line
Giving feedback is one of the most important parts of your job. Feedback is only effective if it's frequent and helpful.
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.
Hey Wally,
I love this post. You have simply and elegantly highlighted a major pillar in being a good leader.
I especially like the point you make about making the feedback usable. Sometimes we as leaders for get that. We just say "Great Job!" or "Well Done!" People need to know exactly what they did good (or bad) so that behavior is encouraged (or discouraged).
Timing, as you mentioned, is very important as well. Praise and criticism are time sensitive.
It's all about being engaged.
Great post, Wally.
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Thanks Rick. You're right about the fact that feedback needs to be specific to be helpful. Oddly, it seems that many leaders have a harder time doing that with positive feedback. They say, "Good job!" but they don't tell you why.
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One of my most favorite blog.
Rgds,
Deb
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Wally, I think providing feedback to your team is important but communication is a two-way street. Through these conversations and "face team" managers should make an effort to lower their walls in order to receive feedback on themselves. Not only to make communication easier but to also make employees feel less defensive.
Thanks for the post
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You make a good point, Matt. I've found that if a boss shows up a lot and has conversations with team members, that sets the stage for the feedback you mention. That said, for most bosses this needs to be done in two steps.
F
irst you show up a lot, have conversations, and deliver both positive and negative feedback. That builds the trust that allows team members to feel safe enough to attempt feedback.
Then leaders need to work on receiving feedback. In the beginning, team members aren't sure it's safe and aren't sure how you'll react. So we counsel leaders to simply say, "Thank you." No defenses. No explanations. Just "Thank you."
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Wally, My favorite part of this post is the dinosaur principle
Seriously, I learned to appreciate the importance of giving feedback by not getting any. At one point in my career, I had a manager who complained to everyone else about how I was managing a difficult project (I heard this from my colleagues and once received an email from her that I shouldn't have been copied on). Yet I'd worked for her for several years and never had a performance evaluation or any hint of feedback - good or bad - from her.
One day I set up a meeting with her and requested that she give me feedback on how she thought I was doing on the project in question. She still skirted the questions, and couldn't seem to give me honest feedback. I voluntarily left the organization shortly thereafter.
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Thanks for sharing those comments and that story, Mary Jo. From my experience, I'd bet that supervisor was deathly afraid of confrontation and wound up in a boss's job because no one evaluated willingness to confront as a important attitude. I'm sure she didn't get any training in how to talk about performance and I'm betting she rationalized her own behavior by thinking that she was actually "sparing you" or "doing you a favor" by not sharing her evaluation of your work.
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This is really good advice. It seems like I see many of the bosses at my organization wait for that yearly review to lay down the hammer on employees and rarely give feedback throughout the year. These employees tell me that they are often blindsided by their manager’s comments since they felt they had been doing a suitable job all year. Giving feedback as you suggest, would elevate this issue and most certainly boost productivity. When will this concept be widely adopted?
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Thanks, Garrett. Unfortunately, that’s a common complaint. When people talk about wanting to eliminate the performance review, that's what I think they're trying to fix.
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Excellent article Wally! Thanks for taking the time to write it. It's amazing how a person may not know how much of a dis-service they are doing for their subordinates by not giving feedback when it may in fact be the most important time to give it. Your last two sentences, "Giving feedback is one of the most important parts of your job. Feedback is only effective if it's frequent and helpful" sums it all up nicely! Thanks again and cheers!
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Thanks for the kind words, Gil. I think most bosses know what they should do. Since it's scary and they have no aptitude or training for it, though, they avoid it. They come up with an explanation to justify that behavior to themselves.
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Great post Wally. Just found your blog today through the compTIA smartbrief - and I'm glad I did!
I would add that when providing positive feedback, do just that. Do not bundle it with other communications, as it tends to water your intent down. Concentrate on your message and make sure it is driven home. Avoid the "oh by the way" statement; isolate the feedback and the associate will appreciate it more.
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Excellent point, Jake. Don't dilute the praise.
If you're delivering negative feedback, the same, one-thing-at-a-time, rule applies. You want to talk about a specific behavior or a specific performance issue. If you try to bundle several issues into one communication, you're likely to more confusion than change.
Thanks for commenting.
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Giving feedback and coaching is one of the most important jobs of a manager. It is something that is ignored far too often.
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Thanks, John. It is amazing how often the subject is left out of training and evaluation for managers.
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So true. Even if you don't have a grand plan as a boss, so much comes up naturally in conversation.
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Conversations are almost magical tools for bosses who are willing to have them. You learn about team members and their work. They learn about you. Thanks, Laura.
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I think sometimes the issue of offering feedback begins much earlier when we fail to establish clear performance expectations, norms and guidelines. If people understand clearly what is expected of them the feedback can be objectively and specifically tied back to those expectations.
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I think you're absolutely right, Laura. If the expectations aren't clear, it's almost impossible for feedback to mean something.
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Really great blog! I love the "Dinosaur Principle". Far too often managers don't deal with the problems until they're big. Then they're battling a monster. Dealing with the problem when it's small can be coaching as you discussed. The employee is often very receptive to coaching.
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Thanks, Ann. Doing things in small steps is a key in many activities. If you're a boss, there's real power in the Dinosaur Principle. Dealing with little problems is easier for everyone and far less likely to result in a heated confrontation.
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Employees who aren't performing well usually know it. The hard part of the conversation is getting started. I have found that asking questions is the best way to get it going. But your theme is dead right--if the only time your employees see you is when you want to discuss bad performance, it will be difficult, and frankly, it means your performance is just as bad as theirs.
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Thanks for stopping by, Dick. I like the idea of starting with questions if that works for you. But my experience also cries out that an increase in the frequency of conversations and adjustments takes a lot of the dread out of the activity.
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You bring to question a great point which has baffled many of us. How can a leader expect their subordinates to complete every task flawlessly if the subordinate doesn’t know when they are doing something wrong? It is similar to training a dog, not to say that subordinates are dogs, if there is only reward for the things they do correctly, but nothing happens when they do something wrong, they will still figure that it is okay to do the wrong things as well. There needs to be some sort of action taken to demonstrate what is being done incorrectly. It is part of a leader’s job to not only praise the good, but discipline the bad as well. A great leader is not afraid of offering advice, whether good or bad.
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Thanks, Jacob. One thing that many new supervisors don't learn is that it's their job to identify the key tasks each team member must perform and assess their competence on each. Then, it becomes the job to work on helping each team member become at least adequate and, ideally, excellent at each one. It's important to have that coaching orientation and the idea of helping your team members grown as a core of what you do.
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This is a great post, Wally. Not sure how I missed it the first time around. You couldn't be more correct in the value of frequent conversations -- of being "present." The most effective recognition is catching employees doing good -- even better if you give employees the ability to "catch" their peers.
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That's a nice addition, Derek. Any advice for making it happen more easily, frequently, etc?
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Wally, you know I'm always happy to give advice.
Peer-to-peer recognition is a key component of a strategic employee recognition program. The best way is to make it somewhat "formal" but still easy and fun. The formality simply puts some controls around reasons for recognition (we strongly recommend company values and strategic objectives -- demonstrating the values in the work or contributing to achieving an objective) and approval levels if the recognition has a high monetary value associated with it. Simple e-card recognition, for example, would have no approvals -- just immediate distribution to the deserving employee.
A benefit of the formality is the recipient knows their peer not only took the time to "formally" thank them, but their boss also saw the details of that appreciation.
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Thanks, Derek. I knew there was more in your advice bag than what we saw in your earlier comment. I would only add one thing. Formal programs should never be thought to substitute for what goes on every day in good work groups. The formal can amplify the informal but can't replace it.
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Couldn't agree more, Wally. I considered adding that point to my earlier comment, but thought I had gone on too long.
In a company that has a true culture of recognition the formal and informal are constantly blending, flowing and feeding each other. It's a beautiful thing to see in practice.
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Thanks, Derek.
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Performance review is one of the hardest things for the managers to do. Providing good feedback is easy but addressing performance when it needs to be improved is difficult for most of us. The reason is that it can be demotivating. I think that managers that have a hard time providing feedback and guidance to their employees are not very good leaders. As a leader one is ready for criticism and as such feels comfortable telling their employees what they need to do and telling that in a good way. Managers must provide feedback to their employees often and when the issues are small no one will take that criticism seriously as it will be viewed as guidance rather than critique. Also providing feedback and guidance can help managers/leaders in evaluating their employees and ensuring proper engagement in work. If managers take these small steps they will have an easier time managing and will enjoy higher employee satisfaction.
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To Wally and other contributors,
What a blessing for me to find the Dinosaur Principle tonight because I feel like I have to don my armor before going to talk with my manager tomorrow. Several months ago, I tried to lead my small dinosaur into my manager's office explaining why I would rather be assigned to Team B, not Team A
No assignment change was made or explanation given. Now I have been under medical supervision for stress-related health conditions. Tomorrow I go back to see the doctor and manager.
I feel anxious and certainly don't know about the outcome. The manager and I are both pulling on the dinosaur's reins in different directions. I don't know if I can climb on its back and survive the ride or if I'll get smacked to the ground by the whip of its tail.
Wally's post and the comments help me focus on healing and returning to work. While I'm at appointments, I'll be humming, "Puff, the magic dragon!"
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One of the most successful way to get people to change is to have them critique their own work.
Now, of course, the downside is that they will not be as complete in their eval. However, researchers in the social science found it is more likely than a superior's comments to bring about change.
The point is you want full honest, a superior is better equipped. You want change its better if the employee puts her finger on the need.
I agree though feedback is important, and it is best received if it is taken as informative rather than evalutive. In my experience the more concrete and measurable my feedback is (and less accusatory) the better results I get with it.
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Thanks, Alex. My experience with the "what do you think" technique is that it works best if it's not used all the time and that it is simply a poor choice with some individuals.
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