When people you work with keep falling short on getting the job done, you can feel like pulling your hair out. Or if you’re like me with no hair to pull, you just rub your head in frustration. Effective feedback will get them on track and keep them there.
In the series on the Leadership Loop, we started off talking about setting the right expectations. You first have to let people know exactly what you want them to do as part of your team. Then we discussed the importance of a leader helping the people on the team develop the skills needed to fulfill the expectations. After you let them know what you want to do, help them with how to get it done.
Next we discuss what happens next when folks use the skills you’ve taught them to try and come through on the expectations set. What if they just can’t seem to get it right? The answer is that you give them feedback.
A Spoonful of Sugar Helps You Be Nice
Feedback is just letting someone know how things are going compared to the expectations you’ve set. To many leaders, me included, this sound like telling people on your team everything they’re doing wrong. If that’s you, you’re wrong!
When I was working in healthcare administration, my prior experience had been leading in the real estate market and in the military. These were two environment that were very competitive and you often got feedback very bluntly and directly. And even though the military is getting kinder and gentler, there wasn’t a ton of sympathy if you got your feelings hurt every now and then. Put some dirt on it, get the job done and let’s go!
In healthcare, people were good at what they did because they were empathetic and connected with patients on an emotional level. My military style, even watered down didn’t match the environment. I had to learn to connect with team members personally and give much more positive feedback and encouragement about even the smallest thing someone was doing well before and AFTER bringing up anything negative.
That balance along with developing a connection helped create an environment where folks could hear what I wanted them to do better. They felt like they worked for someone who cared about them being their best instead of a hard to please taskmaster.
Be Clear & Don’t Wait to Give Feedback
Scott Halford writes in Entrepreneur Magazine about two important steps in giving productive feedback. The first point is to be specific. I live in Los Angeles where traffic is always a convenient excuse for being late. Since it’s important for people to be on time to get meetings started, I have to say more to someone late than “be on time.” I started saying, “We need your input for the full meeting so please add 30-45 minutes to however long your GPS says you’ll need to get here since we all know traffic in LA can be crazy. And if somehow, there is still something unexpected on the road that pops up, just text me as early as you see a problem and let me know you’ll be late.”
This makes the instruction clear, it helps the other person remove a couple of excuses, and it still gives room for real life to happen. Don’t beat around the bush or be vague. You’re not doing either of you any favors.
You also have to be immediate. Sometimes we wait weeks or months go by before giving people important feedback on how they’re doing. If you are remarking on something positive, they may not remember the situation well enough to have that behavior reinforced.
If you wait too long to give constructive feedback on things that need to be improved on, that person is building bad habits you’ll have to work harder to change than if you address it immediately. You are also sending a message to your whole company when poor performance is unaddressed. You are letting everyone know poor performance is acceptable.
Other people know when someone on the team is performing below standards. If you let it go by unchecked, you will soon notice other people let their performance lag as well. The good thing is that there’s an easy fix. Correct the behavior and you establish the standard you expect on your team so that it’s clear for all.
Praise in Public, Criticize in Private
I make it a point to make a big deal about someone doing well in a very public, sometimes embarrassing way. If possible, I try to connect this positive performance to the values of the organization. It just feels good to be noticed doing the right thing and you’d be surprised how well even the lowest performer can be motivated by positive recognition in a team meeting or even on the spot.
With few exceptions, I like to correct behavior in as private of an environment as possible. Sometimes, you work in an environment like a sports team or restaurant or perhaps a lot of people are making the same mistake and you need to train in order to fix the problem on a wide scale. In that case, if you’re going to use someone as an example, just make it a point to ask them first if it’s ok to do that.
Otherwise, try to pull someone aside or have a private meeting where you discuss the problem and a possible fix. In public, the person you’re correcting could get embarrassed in the wrong way and become defensive. That environment could make them deaf to any correction and only consider you to be picking on them.
It’s Not You It’s Me
This is where the power of the Leadership Loop comes in. You can take pressure off of the person you’re correcting by looping back around to Expectations and Skills. Ask them again to repeat to you what the expectations were. You can uncover some misunderstandings in how you communicated what you wanted or something they missed.
You can also review their Skills. Was your training on point? Did they feel supported in the learning process? Did they have access to the right tools? All of these are areas where you can make your company stronger so you become more clear with what you expect and improve your training program.
There is also something more subtle going on. The person who’s working for you starts to hear and understand that success or failure is not all on their shoulders. You are taking the lead on taking responsibility for team performance. When you communicate that you are working hard to set them up for success good employees will work even harder for you.
By giving both positive and negative feedback consistently, you reinforce your team’s skills and clarify expectations. By doing it in a positive manner, you inspire motivate rather than wear down the folks on your team. When you are specific and immediate, you can clearly reinforce good behavior with kudos and eliminate or prevent bad habits with correction. And when you assume the role as a leader that you’ll do all you can to create the environment for success, you end up with a team who will run through the wall for you, even if you are tough on them.
