Difficult Feedback

Feedback is what we rely on to make sense of the world.?

We send out a message, we get a response that confirms our understanding or forces us to change. A child looks for reassurance from a carer and is comforted.? Another reaches for a pot and is scalded.? Yet another strives for advancement and seeks the rewards.

Feedback is a response that carries information about how an action has been received. The feedback will cause the initiator to repeat, cease or reflect on modifications to that action.

For the leader nothing is a more sensitive issue than feedback.? And it can come in many forms:

• The suggestion, given with honest intent, for improvement.
• The complaint, put as a case for grievance--with or without a claim for compensation.
• The shit sandwich--the complaint wrapped in nice things about you.
• Undermining--complaining to everyone else, rather than taking it directly to the affected party (who may never know of it).
• The passive-aggressive response.? Where the complainant, rather than making a complaint, attacks something or someone else instead, hoping to influence the cause.
• Writing a note--making a sign, a note, or an email of grievance, rather than speaking to the affected party.
• Routine feedback--to meet the needs of a process (which may or may not be helpful), such as a performance appraisal.
• The survey--considered responses to a formal set of questions, such as a 360 degree.
• Congratulations or praise--sure, there’s a place for unadulterated positivity.?

Difficult feedback.? Too often, annoying or unhelpful situations in the workplace are allowed to fester--without clear feedback--until they become a problem way out of proportion to their initial cause.?

Where a quiet, self-assertive reaction at the outset could have nipped any problem in the bud, we now have anger and unavoidable damage. That anger, in my opinion almost always a mask for fear, is often the nub of it:

We were uncomfortable about raising it, perhaps because we didn’t have the skills or the awareness, and one thing has led to another.? The fear that we didn’t process initially has now escalated into anger and the outcome will not be pretty--for either party.? We have created a difficulty around feedback that could so easily have been avoided. ?The mood we create becomes:

this is a disaster and it could get worse.

When receiving difficult feedback, we remain calm and receptive.? As someone brings us their issue, which we may also frame as an opportunity, we need to:

1.????? Listen for the facts.

2.????? Take note of the feelings.

3.????? Resist the temptation to defend, justify or react in the moment.

4.????? When we have heard the message, acknowledge the feelings and repeat the facts back to the speaker.

5.????? Ask if there is anything else.

6.????? Ask what the speaker would like us to do.

Then we give our own feedback, where we:

7.????? Say what we will do--and by when.

8.????? If appropriate, point out what that party may do to assist.

As in most cases, prevention, or pre-emptive feedback is even better.? As a Leader by Influence, we will have already set the standard and people’s expectations by articulating a set of secular values which we name, describe and demonstrate—if these are documented and illustrated with indicative behaviours, people will know what they are up for and, if they are aligned, will be trusting and likely, trustworthy—without which any feedback will lack integrity.

When we go out of our way to find people doing things right--and acknowledging their contribution--we do a great service to the morale of our workplace.? It also becomes easier to add suggestions or recommendations for improvement if needed.

We can even ask people informally “What’s wrong?”.? Then we dig further, and we act on the feedback.? In this, we are leading, just where we should be, and then the mood we create becomes:

things are good and can be even better.

The consequences for our leadership are crystal-clear.

Nothing can do more damage to our leadership than not dealing calmly and effectively with feedback.?

Nothing could enhance our leadership more than dealing calmly and effectively with feedback.

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Next week: Feedback About My Leadership

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About the Author

Jeff Bell?is Principal of executive consultancy ResultsWise in Perth, WA.?To boost your leadership, ask Jeff about Band of Leaders Australia (BOLA) [email protected] and his consulting, coaching and strategy facilitation, or his Advanced Leadership Course [email protected] Mobile 0439 988 662.