10 Commandments of Giving Feedback

As you move through this month of February, and if you are a manager, you will likely be asked to provide some feedback to your direct reports.  Even if your organization doesn’t require an annual performance appraisal it’s a great idea to touch base.  Setting direction, providing feedback and sharing your expectations is important if you want your employees to stay on course. So here are the ten commandments of giving feedback.  Psst.... These work in your personal life too!

1.  Honor Contributions.

Before you even begin the feedback, value the individual. Discuss their role on the team.  Be sincere and thorough, discuss how the team member contributes.  Take your time, this will set the tone for the rest of the conversation.

2.  Give Positive Recognition and Make It Count.

Think about the strengths this person brings to the table. Be specific by giving examples that are illustrative of their strengths and encourage repeat shining performances.  Allow the positive feedback to stand alone, don't always use it as a "lead in" to more difficult topics.

3.  Be Specific.

Give examples.  Make sure your examples are recent and specific. Find a time to discuss the examples in private and allow enough time to have a good quality conversation.

4.  Describe Behavior.

Stay factual and neutral in your description.  Don’t describe why you think they are doing this or not doing that. Leave the intention to them, stay on your side of the conversation equation. Just stay with describing the observable behavior. Stay away from adjectives. Any words evoke a response and our reaction to adjectives can be very individual.  For example, words like "careless" or "not-engaged", may seem fairly innocuous to you but could be seem overly critical to another. It is safer to describe only what you can observe in specific terms.

5.  Careful with “Never”/”Always”.

Avoid words that are too extreme like “never” and “always”.  Whenever I hear these I want to challenge, Really? Always? What about the last time? Or the time before? Don’t let the conversation be sidetracked by this moot point. If the problem behavior happened it is a problem. If it is repeated share several recent examples.

6.  Ask and Listen.

Ask for their experience of the behavior to get an accurate picture of their motivations. "What happened there?" This is important to reduce defensiveness, but also to gain an accurate picture of how they might improve. Is it: Training? Poor decision-making? Time management? Organization?  Stay with their side of the story until you have a clear picture. Your communication here should be patient and open-minded. Understanding their thought process doesn’t mean you are endorsing it, just seeking clarity.

7.  Discuss "Natural" Consequences.

Discuss why the suggested change matters, what are the consequences if they don’t improve. I don’t mean disciplinary consequences although you might end up there. Why do you care?  For example, if someone misses meetings the consequence might be that they will not have access to information shared in that meeting, decisions taken there will not include their perspective may not serve their needs or those whose voice they are representing. They may even suffer a reputation hit if others see them as unreliable or disrespectful.  All of these consequences occur whenever the meeting is missed.  These are “natural” consequences, not disciplinary consequences. This makes it less personal.  You are not punishing, only holding up the mirror for them.

8.  Keep Emotional Control.

Thou shalt not lose emotional control. This seems like an obvious one but if you are angry you’d better wait a bit.  We want the emotion to match the urgency and importance of the issue, so this isn't about “sugar- coating”.  But you always want to be in control of your emotional expression in order to avoid personal attacks.

9.  Participate.

Offer support and ask for suggestions on how you might support their improvement.  You will want to be clear about how you can and cannot help.  This clarity will support your efforts to follow-up.  Now is the time to discuss the responsibility of change and what they can expect from you.  If the situation continues or gets worse you don’t want to hear later about all the things you could have or should have done to help.

10.  Be Optimistic.

Create a vision of new and improved outcomes, express your optimism about getting there and schedule some specific time to follow-up. Change is not easy and will require a level of deliberate effort.  You will want your communication to be selling and encouraging here.

Sounds easy, but of course it isn’t.   Frequency on this will increase trust so try not to let issues build-up.  February the perfect time to get things moving in the right direction for 2015!