Can you find the Middle Ground

Are you a Listening Person?

The more you listen, the better employees think you are at giving feedback

If you want to give great feedback, the most important thing you can do is listen.

This is somewhat counter-intuitive: Many people typically about the feedback conversation as an almost one-way discussion where the manager provides advice and guidance.

The primary goal of open workplace communication is to build a culture where the collective intelligence of all employees is captured and valued.

Whether your goal is to improve your organizational culture, get better connected with employees and colleagues or boost program awareness, you can put to work in your organization today.

A secondary goal is to instill a culture of accountability whereby employees—regardless of position level—can share feedback that constructively improves the performance of a team.

Leadership is about increasing the confidence of others on your team and the manner in which you provide feedback is a key variable in your ability to instill confidence and people who develop this skill will advance further and faster than those that don’t.

The more you listen to employee views before giving feedback, the better the employee experiences and understands the feedback. It’s all about making sure employees understand and agree with the basis of the feedback, and buy into the course of action.

Confucius said, “Humility is the solid foundation of all virtue."

Ultimately, open and honest communication is achieved in high-trust environments. And the most important driver of trust is humility. Employees, managers, and senior leaders all have to resist the same temptation of pride. The more humility we display, the more effective we are at delivering feedback; the more effective we are at delivering feedback, the more likely our feedback is to be thoughtfully received.

By definition, open communication requires at least two individuals. When communication breaks down, it’s typically the result of failures on both sides. Avoid pointing fingers towards any single individual. And recognize that change will require effort on the part of all team members.

Chances are, your employees are withholding valuable intelligence from you. Maybe it’s about a project that’s gone off track or a manager who’s behaving badly. Or maybe they’re not sharing their thoughts on ways the business could grow its sales or improve operations. No matter how open you are as a manager, our research shows, many of your people are more likely to keep mum than to question initiatives or suggest new ideas at work.

This is true even if, like most leaders, you believe you have an open-door policy.

The Fear Factor

It doesn’t take a tyrannical boss to inspire fear within an organization. Nor does it matter if an unsettling event like a restructuring or a takeover happened long ago. Once people become afraid to speak their minds, they’ll keep justifying their silence with explanations like “That’s the way our culture is—you don’t disagree with your boss.”

Be transparent.

Transparency about feedback processes can reduce anxiety and increase participation. In one midsize health services company, a VP for quality outlined a six-week plan for gathering and acting on employee ideas for improvements in three major areas. She laid out three clear phases: two weeks to collect ideas through an online platform; two weeks for task forces to evaluate the impact and feasibility of the ideas; and two weeks to prioritize which ideas would be implemented, create timelines, and announce plans to the rest of the company. Spelling out guidelines and commitments up front made contributing feel less daunting and futile to employees.

Reach out.

If you really want to know what people think about something, go ask them. Otherwise, employees might seek you out only when things are getting really bad for them. However, try not to shut out good suggestions that don’t happen to jibe with your current priorities.

Invite People to Share the Unvarnished Truth

(Find out what people really think of your program by asking them to share honest feedback).

Ask your peers in HR, legal and other departments – and your managers and frontline employees, They will all have a different perspective to yours.

Use questions like:

• Which elements of the program I am proposing do you think will be most effective – and which are most likely to be received with eye rolling or worse?
• What’s been a success, and where have we missed the mark?
• What do they look forward to and what do they dread?
• If you do implement one or more of these ideas, I would love to hear how it worked. LIKE THE ARTICLE & Get in touch with me at any of the links below.