Negative Feedback- It ain't easy

Feedback is the juice on which personal growth happens in the corporate world.

If the feedback process is not effective, not only does the organization waste hours of productive time,? but also the employees don't grow to their highest potential.

How many hours are wasted due to ineffective feedback process?

Say, there is a 100 employee Company? with? 90 ICs(Individual Contributors) and 10 Managers.

Average One to One Feedback session is 2 hour/employee/month.

So Hours spent on Feedback = 180 hours/month(ignoring Managers time)

Even if 50% of the feedback is effective, the amount of hours wasted is significant.

It is unfortunate that one single process,? which is so critical in improving the productivity of an organization and the employee, is not very effective and we have kind of chosen to live with it.

Why do feedbacks, despite all good intentions, tend to be largely ineffective?

Let's quickly understand how it is done today.

The common principles which most managers use are:-

• Provide Timely Feedback.
• Provide Specific Feedback with concrete examples.
• Focus on behavior and not the person.
• When providing the negative feedback, always pad it with a few positive ones.

There would hardly be any disagreement on the first 3 points but the last one needs a little deep diving.

But why is it that managers feel the need to balance(sugarcoat) negative feedback?

Probably because of one of the following reasons:-

1. Managers are nice people and they(like most of us) don’t think that it is a? decent human attribute to tell someone on their face that there is something wrong with them or their behavior.
2. Managers are weak and they(like most of us) want to avoid confrontation with their team members. Any negative feedback is bound to trigger some difficult conversation and that is the last thing they want in their meeting-packed day.
3. Managers believe that this is the only way to provide the feedback. Mostly because they have learnt it from their seniors or some management books.

But why is it so hard to provide direct negative feedback?

After all, if both the feedback giver and the feedback receiver can't face the truth in full objectivity, how are they going to change the situation or the outcome?

I think the single most important factor that determines how comfortable a manager is in providing a negative feedback is :- Trust between Manager and their team.

Let me unpack.?

As is the case in our personal life, more than the message, it is the person through whom the message gets delivered, determines how seriously we take the message and how likely we are to heed the advice.

For eg:-? Think of a scenario when a father asks his son to get up early versus the neighbourhood uncle or distant relative. Father-son relationship has stronger trust levels, hence message is more likely to stick with the son.

What are some of the ways which can help a manager deliver the negative feedback?

Based on my experience, here are few things a manager can do:-

• Assess the trust-level with their team members and continue to improve it.??
• Believe that the objective and uncomfortable feedback is more useful than vague and generic one in the career growth of the team member. Of course, the feedback would help organization as well but the primary purpose of the feedback is accelerating the growth of the team member.
• Link the feedback/suggestions with the outcome. Be aware that the change in outcome might take 4-12 months once the behavior change is accepted and applied. Mostly the outcome is combination of tangible metrics(less bugs, timely delivery etc for a software engineer) and feedback(do unit test, get design reviewed etc) is a behavior change.
• Discuss with the team member whether they are already aware of the negative feedback. If they are, then are they facing any hurdles to effect the change? ? Sometimes the team member is aware of the need for their behavior change but there is one small bump that is holding their progress, not letting them move forward. They just need someone to hold their hand and get them past the bump and who better than the manager.

Conclusion:-

I know I haven’t talked much about “Assess the trust-level with your team members and continue to improve it.”,? but it is a topic in itself and would cover in some other post.

More than style and substance of the message, it is the underlying TRUST the employee has with the manager that determines how well the feedback is received and is likely to be actioned upon.

If the trust-levels are not very high between manager and employee, the feedback process would be yet another wasted opportunity for both team member and organization.

Let me know in the comments ?? ?? if this is helpful to you?or someone you know ?