Do you have any feedback for me?
It’s that time of the year! You have slogged throughout the year and now it’s time for annual appraisal. Your manager goes through the goals and provides feedback. Your good work gets acknowledged. Some areas of improvement are identified. There is discussion about career aspirations and a development plan to realize the same. It seems like a good start to next year. Suddenly, the manager pops the million-dollar question “Do you have any feedback for me?”
The question is of course highly unexpected. The session is meant to receive feedback and not give. You try to be polite by saying a few nice things related to motivation and support. The manager presses on. You think that you finally have a manager, who is open-minded. You muster the courage and point out a few areas of improvement to the manager candidly.
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?Almost immediately, there is a change of mood and the manager becomes defensive. All sort of reasons get mentioned to justify why the action taken or behavior demonstrated was justified. You notice that the rest of the discussion is not so candid anymore. Like all good (or not so good) things in life, the discussion ends nonetheless. You notice that a lot of hesitation during the next one-to-one discussion and it’s all downhill from there. Now, you are dreading what you said and kicking yourself.?You can’t wait to move on to next opportunity (or secretly hope that your manager gets promoted) so that you don’t need to have awkward discussions with your manager anymore.
What went wrong here? Should the manager have not asked for feedback? Should the employee have been more tactful? After all, management gurus promote open communication highlighting that great organizations require 360 degrees feedback to ensure continuous improvement. The ground reality is that very few people manage to reach that state of nirvana, where they can digest frank feedback. That the feedback comes from a direct report makes it only more difficult for the manager to overcome ego. One needs to realize that this situation is not very different from the scenario, when the wife (no offense Ladies!) asks “Do I look fat in this dress”? You know that there is only one answer to this question, which needs to come out impulsively and without hesitation.
CTO (Future Energy ) - ESSAR Future Energy?? Building Advance Biofuel / PTX - RFNBO Refineries
3 年Well said Dr. Vinay Kariwala, fully concur with you. 360 Degree Feedback, Equal Opportunity Employer , Best place to work are some fancy words that soemtime have no substance when you get into the game. Taking candid feedbacks with that pinch of Nirvana is not easy for majority. And that example of "Do I look fat...", I swear you hit the nail at highly sensitive right spot ??
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3 年Well said Vinay!!! It's just dependant on maturity from both sides. If one is matured person and another is not then feedback session goes smooth...if both are matured then feedback session goes productively...if both are not matured then feedback session completes as just planned activitiy.
Global Business Development | Global Product Management | Strategy & Product Development | Team Leader | Sales Enabler
3 年Vinay Kariwala very nice read…any manager has been (or still is) a direct report to someone else. But often we tend to apply different rules in terms of openness, depending on who do we talk to. Since perception is reality in the eyes of the other, we shall then have the honesty and strength to look into these mirrors and try to change these perspectives when feeling that they do not represent us.
Hi Vinay how true. First of all managers should not ask for feedback. They should show how good they are by their deeds. No doubt, as you mentioned it is trap and it completely changes future interactions. Managers should avoid this particular question in my opinion.
Head of Idea & Incubation Office | Spearheading futuristic innovations | AI/ML | AR/VR | Blockchain | Digital Transformation in Power Sector | Startups, Industry & Academia Collaboration
3 年Very true! Our society is not ready for taking open feedbacks...this is only possible when we can give both the ears for the feedback without judging it...in my opinion feedback from other's point of view is their perception about us so this could be true or not in reality..after hearing the feedback deciding what actions to be taken is completely our choice ... but a listening heart can give a lot of open space for the employee to talk freely about Manager where sometimes manager's blindspots will get revealed :) ...