Don't We Always have an Excuse to Avoid the Feedback?

Most people working across different organizations would be done with their annual performance review for this year by now, at least at the places where there is a process in place to do so. I think we should also talk about this phenomenon a bit. I attended a program in 2022 where I asked the instructor, "Sometimes, I think the feedback given to a person feels a bit personal. It impacts the job but is related to their personal life/habits. Should I still share that?" They said, "Yes, of course if it is impacting the job."

I have managed teams of very small sizes so far (3-5 people) for the last 3 years. And because of that I had the chance to know those people very well in a short span of time and working closely with them, I could see areas where feedback sharing was necessary at some point or another. I have a lot to learn when it comes to sharing feedback and making it more effective in terms of application, but I am confident about the feedback I have which comes from intuition, ability to understand people quickly, and self-knowledge.

Today, let's talk about a situation that I believe is quite common between a manager and their teammate.

Let's look at a situation...

Ajay: "Last time when you were working on collating information from different sources, you had not kept me updated on the progress, and when I checked later, it was only 60-70% complete and we had crossed the timeline for sharing this information without the plan for collecting the remaining information."

Himesh: "I know Ajay. I should have connected with you for this. Somehow, that got missed and the work got delayed. I know the impact it has on the stakeholders, and I will not repeat this."

Himesh's point about 'impact on stakeholders' has been picked from the feedback shared by Ajay last time.

Ajay: "This discussion has happened before so please make sure to follow the feedback this time."

Himesh: "Yes, I recall our conversation from last time."

Now, Himesh can say one of the 3 things:

1. Himesh-1: "There is always so much work to do. I forget talking with you about specific work items."(Here, Himesh is attributing delay to external factors, which conveys that he has not control over the situation.)
2. Himesh-2: "I felt that you would be busy, hence I did not bother you."(Putting on the external factors again. Although, it may be true that the manager keeps busy and does not give time. But this can backfire if Himesh had not even checked with his manager.)
3. Himersh-3: "After constantly reminding people to share information, they still not send it, so I lose the motivation to complete it."(Here, he acknowledges that there is something which is in his control, although impacted by external factors. If the manager can understand this, it can encourage discussion about bringing changes to the process, or maybe more radically, can open dialogue about what other things can affect the motivation for work. The manager can try to find a balance for Himesh so that he has different type of tasks as well.)

The challenge with such conversations is that people respond like Himesh did in the first 2 scenario (a 4th possible scenario is where people listen and nod but don't do anything about it). It is very difficult to have a deep conversation with people in general, let alone at a workplace. There are multiple reasons for it - lack of time, not having such in-depth awareness of self and others, lack of interest and care, some sort of fear for the reaction it may bring.

The HBR article here says that people don't respond well to feedback because they are not prepared to face the emotions it may bring. Instead of having any meaningful conversation about the existing challenges, employees submit to procrastination, brooding or other maladaptive techniques which make our case weaker when we arrive for annual performance reviews.

What do we do with this…

As always I ask, "What do we generally do when we become aware of something like this?" We enjoy reading and don't do anything. Or we read and discard it as irrelevant or extreme. Or we think about it.

The above HBR article shares some ideas on what we should do. Their one work answer is - learn to adapt to feedback. Then they provide details on how to do it.

I list down a few steps you can take to understand the feedback shared by your manager and then respond appropriately.

• Be open to listen to what is being said and listen carefully. Our brain is likely to give immediate reactions through thoughts, feelings, and bodily responses, to which we tend to react and do something in the situation. It can be as small as zoning out and not listening to what is being said.
• Do not react. That's an instinctual response. When we get such intense response from our body and mind, we tend to act on it. That must be avoided. Intense reactions to something teach us a lot about ourselves (everyone has their own version of intense, so this is highly individualized).
• Take a moment to think whether the feedback is true for you or not. We all tend to do things based on our biases. It is a possibility that your manager's feedback is not true, but it is also possible that it is. You need to ask them for more clarity (using some example situations from the past). If your manager is not able to do it, then do it yourself. Once I was starting on a new project and I had got a knowledge transfer of a code. I did not ask the purpose. They taught me and I learnt, but I needed more time to be able to work on it. When my manager asked me if I can use that code to get the output, I told them that I will need more time as I don't understand it enough. To which they raised questions as to why I did not mention it before. I responded, "Sorry, I will work on it." Now I know that that was wrong. I was not given a full knowledge transfer - the guys who owned it, did not know it himself. I was not told about the timelines to understand and implement it. But I took it on myself. If the feedback given to you is not true, then tell your manager that it is not.

This is my approach to it. Combining it with HBR points, can be very beneficial for you to do use feedback effectively. Do remember that people in the workplace are people. They make judgement errors about people and their behaviors, so it's not necessary that everything is going to be true, but it is also possible that you are biased to think that what your manager is saying is not true.

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