From the course: Foundations of Performance Management

Optimizing feedback

From the course: Foundations of Performance Management

Start my 1-month free trial

Optimizing feedback

“

- Hearing the truth from someone you work with can really hurt and upset. But the alternative of never having anyone give you or your team feedback simply isn't an option. 'Cause without any feedback, you and your staff will never become a high performing team. Since you'll be operating in a silent vacuum of zero feedback and never learning how you can all improve. Quite simply, the path to success for both you and your staff is to learn to give feedback well and to receive it in a positive and open manner. In my early years as a manager, I never took giving and receiving feedback seriously enough and I'm sure that my own career as well as the performance of my various teams suffered as a result. It was only after having had a great boss, who taught me the value of feedback, that I became a convert to the incredible power of both giving to and receiving feedback from my colleagues. Fortunately, it's very easy to create an ideal feedback culture by simply following four pieces of advice. Firstly, be generous with your praise. Get into the habit of giving each of your team lots of positive feedback and give it as soon as they've done something good, such as presenting well in a meeting, helping diffuse a tense discussion or proactively helping colleagues with their work. Advice number two, give negative feedback carefully. If you wish to give a member of your team some potentially negative or critical feedback, which is sometimes referred to as constructive or developmental feedback, take your time to plan well what you'll say and how you'll communicate it. Then give the feedback in private being as specific and helpful with your comments as possible. Give examples of when the person may have exhibited the issue that you are giving them feedback about. This will help them better visualize and understand what they did and make it easy to accept what you are telling them. Advice number three, is to encourage your staff to calmly receive any critical feedback from you or from anybody by helping them to understand the value of feedback. Share with them that it is better to know what others are seeing and thinking rather than being left in the dark. And by encouraging them to simply listen when they're being given the feedback and not to rush to want to interrupt, justify or disagree. Teach them to ask questions to ensure they have fully understood the feedback, before speaking up or justify their actions. And finally, advice number four is to help create an ideal feedback culture by asking for feedback from your own team. As well as helping you grow and developing as a leader, your role modeling this way will encourage your staff to become more comfortable in both giving and receiving feedback. Now, think about a member of your team who might be struggling and could use some advice. Begin to plan what you'll say as well as how you will help them to receive your feedback. The more you practice this it transforms your team's performance.

Contents