The 5 Commandments of Feedback
Many managers I talk to say they don’t have time to coach or develop their employees among all the other work they have to do. The problem is organizations are unnecessarily placing the burden of employee development on managers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Below are the 5 commandments to giving feedback, which is a vital component to employee development, and alternative solutions that will ease the burden on managers.
Provide feedback frequently. As I’ve mentioned previously, many organizations only provide their employees with feedback once per year during their performance evaluation. Good employees crave information about the company’s goals and whether they are helping the company achieve those goals. I recommend biweekly, or even weekly, one-on-one meetings between managers and employees. One-on-ones should rarely be cancelled or rescheduled. These meetings can be trimmed down to 30-minutes so only vital things are discussed. You can use my free template for content and structure ideas.
Use a 360 degree approach. Gather input from everyone, such as the employee’s peers, direct reports, customers, and project leads. While a manager may have formed an opinion about their employee’s performance, they are only able to see a sliver of that person’s work and behavior. A customer or peer may have an entirely different experience or opinion. Many direct reports are too scared to give candid feedback to their boss so it’s important those leaders receive feedback from all angles. You can get a 360 feedback tool and so much more with my consulting package.
Keep it short and unbiased. Don’t use the cookie approach of positive, negative, positive. When your children misbehave, do you wait an entire month before addressing it and feed them a cheesy-feel-good line? No! Give praise and address poor performance when needed. Although we all have a natural bias, try not to apply your own judgment or assumptions when giving feedback. This is another reason why 360 degree feedback is a good tool to use. I love speaker and trainer, Cy Wakeman’s idea that “Feedback should be a jump-start for self-reflection. Therefore, feedback is short and self-reflection is long.” The main goal behind giving feedback is to prompt the employee to self-reflect and develop their own solution for how to improve.
Provide feedback when solicited. An employee is more likely to utilize the feedback they receive if they ask for it, versus if it is being forced on them. However, sometimes the people who need advice and direction do not solicit it during their low points. One solution for this is to address poor performance and praise high performance immediately, as mentioned above. When addressing poor performance, try to do so in a friendly, non-confrontational way, as specified below. In addition, if the organization provides a process that simplifies the feedback process, accountability becomes ingrained in the culture, and employees are more likely to seek advice.
Give constructive criticism in a non-judgmental way. Another common complaint I hear from leaders is no one wants to be the bad guy and give negative feedback. Sorry, managers, that’s your job and you have to do it even if you’re not entirely comfortable with it. Remember, the goal is to spark the reflection process. There are plenty of ways to do this without pushing your employee to a defensive state, such as, “I noticed you didn’t deliver X on time or to the level of quality expected. Can you tell me what’s going on and how we can improve?” Continue to prompt the self-reflection process, keep it focused on facts and performance metrics (not emotion), and encourage them to brainstorm a list of solutions and develop an improvement plan.
By using these commandments, leaders and organizations can foster a high-performance culture; one that takes accountability seriously. When everyone is accountable, focused on performance metrics, self-reflecting, and willing to give and receive feedback, then everyone performs better and organizational success comes full circle.