Providing feedback to your staff in tough. Yet it one of the most rewarding activity you can do to motivate your staff, help them grow and be productive.
Surprising Fact: Most people leave their jobs because they don’t receive good feedback from their managers. They feel alone, dissatisfied and unappreciated. Feedback is a way not only to make sure people do what you want them to do but it is also a way to motivate them and make them feel like they are part of your organization.
Think about it:
- Did you ever give feedback and make a bad situation worst?
- Have you ever avoided giving feedback and hoped things would work themselves out?
- Do you give feedback so sparingly because you were afraid someone might take it the wrong way.
- Or, do you not give feedback because it takes less time to do whatever it is you want done on your own?
It does not have to be this way!
Giving feedback to your staff is one of the most important things you do as a manager. When done right it can lead to better performance, more job satisfaction, better relationships at work, less conflict and less friction for you and every one in your team.
And before we jump into the “how to” of giving feedback it’s really important to know and understand the three types of feedback.
Type one is Negative Feedback:
“Can’t you do anything right?”, “you stink,” “you are not good at____,” “you’ve messed up,” are all examples of the negative feedback.
Another type of negative feedback is the type that everyone is familiar with. It starts with a positive comment and then comes the word ‘but’ and ‘but’ is followed by all of the things that were not correct.
Negative feedback is the feedback we are used to getting growing up. Parents, family members, teachers are all experts with this type of feedback. It’s the type of feedback that leads to resentment, destruction and conflict. Obviously it’s the feedback that you want to avoid because it does more harm than it does good.
Type two is Positive Feedback:
“That was great,” “Great job,” “That was a beautiful shot!” are all examples of positive feedback.
Positive feedback is the feedback you’ve probably got from your favorite coach or teacher and sometimes parents. It’s the feedback that gets you energized and motivated to do more. In technical terms this feedback is called “Positive Enforcement Feedback.” It’s the feedback you give when someone is doing something right and you want them to continue doing it.
Positive feedback is important for four reasons:
- It shows your staff that you pay attention and notice when they do things right.
- It highlights to your staff what you expect out of them.
- It enforces and promotes positive performance.
- It keeps the moral high even in the toughest of situations.
Type three is Constructive Feedback:
“Here is a hint to doing this better next time.” If you modulate your voice more you will project more confidence to your audience” you can improve your performance by doing __________,” are all examples of constructive feedback.
Constructive feedback is not criticism (there is no blame), it’s not personal (ex. you are just lazy) and it’s not closed (this is it and its final). Constructive feedback is inviting, respectful and behavior based. Constructive feedback gives your staff the opportunity to fix what is wrong and what is not working and grow personally and professionally.
How to provide feedback (Formula):
Now that we know of the three types of feedback lets delve into the “how to"
From our training and coaching experience over the years we know that the best kind of feedback is a combination of positive and constructive feedback. Positive Feedback is to enforce the positive and keep staff motivated and constructive feedback is to make adjustments and optimize performance.
Great Feedback = Positive Feedback + Constructive Feedback – Negative Feedback
Your staff loves and responds well to both the positive and constructive types of feedback and hates the negative one.
Five tips to giving great feedback:
- Use Positive and Constructive feedback in every session. Delete negative feedback from your psyche.
- Chose correct timing for feedback:
Feedback is most effective when given as soon as possible after a behavior has occurred.
- Ask for self assessment
Get people involved in the feedback process by asking them for their own assessment. This builds self awareness for your staff and encourages them to be part of the feedback process.
- Be specific
Avoid general feedback. Use specific incidents and behaviors. When you keep it specific and behavior based you avoid the other person’s ego from getting hurt and resisting the feedback.
For example, when providing constructive feedback:
Do: "When you were doing the XYZ presentation last week, I noticed that you did not conclude your talk. If you had mentioned the project highlights and then summarized our position on it, it would have helped bring the whole presentation together. "
Don’t: "You are not good at delivering presentations"
When providing positive feedback:
Do: "When you spoke to potential customer xyz, I noticed that you did your homework on the companies financials and history, that ways great! This is what new clients look for.”
Don’t: "You communicated well with clients"
- Limit feedback to the three most important points
Good managers identify key leveraging points that would make the biggest improvement in their employee’s behavior and zoom in on that.
If you critique everything the employee will get overwhelmed and will not improve. If you give feedback on a couple of key specific behaviors and make sure they get corrected then the employee will focus, improve a lot and builds positive momentum for further improvements.
Summary and key learning points:
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” Ken Blanchard author of the one minute manager.
Give feedback all the time because employees love it, need it and appreciate it.
Focus on positive and constructive feedback and forget about negative feedback.
The more you practice giving feedback the better you will get at it.
It helps to get feedback on your feedback (call us for a free 20 minute consultation about it)
Filed under: Coaching by Peter Khoury
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