Thank you. Is There Anything Else?

A Practical Guide to Feedback Conversations

"Performance review." Does the mere mention of this event give you the chills?

Employees and managers over the world dread this ritual. We have institutionalized the giving and receiving of feedback, most corporations require periodical (quarterly, half year, or annual) performance reviews. We save up our comments and document all the things we note about a person's performance. And then, like a big cat ready to pounce, the manager brings a hapless employee into the office and springs a year's worth of "constructive criticism" onto him or her.

As a start, “Constructive criticism” is an inherent antagonism and it doesn’t exist. You are either constructive or critical. Let’s talk about constructive feedback here.

It is difficult to understand why quarterly, half year or even worse, annual feedback cycles would contribute to employee motivation or performance increase.

If you work together, work together. Talk to each other - regularly. The only way to cooperate efficiently is to constantly check and adjust the direction. Imagine what would happen, if a pilot received quarterly or annual reviews about the direction of the plane he is flying. 

There is nothing wrong with summarizing periodically the continuous discussions, but this discussion should not include any new information.

There is an limitless number of literature pieces available on the net offering invaluable advice on how to give constructive feedback and how to receive feedback constructively. 

Most of mentioned literature in the field gives advice about feedback in general terms. The articles are overly positive about the intentions on the giving and particularly on the receiving end. They take it granted that all managers are born for giving feedback and all employees are eager to receive it. They only need to learn the most efficient ways to do that.

I have spent close to 30 years in the corporate world and for 30 years have participated in the so-called evaluations, later called performance management cycles. 

During all these years, both terminology and the science behind performance evaluation have made giant steps of development. And yet, we still get the shivers when we need to enter a performance discussion.

Where is the discrepancy coming from?

Solicited and Unsolicited Feedback

For the start, we need to distinguish two kinds of feedback: the solicited or pull feedback and the unsolicited or push feedback.

Let’s label push feedback the one that organizations request from their managers and employees. Neither the manager has the choice when and who to give feedback to, nor the employee has the choice of the feedback giver, nor about the subject. 

Pull-feedback, on the contrary, is when a person is searching feedback on a subject of interest from somebody, who he or she regards as an expert or example in the field.

 Practical Guidelines for the Givers

You are nominated to be the manager of a team because your uplines believe that you can effectively manage a team of experts to reach the goals of the organization.

Remember that the individual knowledge of your team members might be higher than your one in their respective fields. Your task is to listen to them, to channel their expertise into the intended direction and manage a team of individuals, who otherwise might follow their own ways.

Because you are higher in the hierarchy, therefore higher in the information feeding chain, you know more about your organization’s strategy and directions and about the latest daily operational expectations than your team do. That is all. You are not necessarily smarter, neither higher educated, may not even know your actual special field better than your downlines. Give - and expect for yourself – the due respect for each parties’ strengths, knowledge, experience and achievements.

During your conversations, having stated the basic facts – where you stand with your tasks, projects, objectives – and what needs to be adjusted in your track going forward, you will want to solicit information from your team members. Ask for their inputs, how they see the track the team is on. What kind of adjustments they think are needed. Never miss to ask, what they want. Majority of us could always do with higher pay, however, this is not the information you are seeking. You would like to know, what are their key motives to strive for more. What do they want to achieve in their career, in their life, are they on the right track for it, and especially, what support they need to accomplish their goals and visions.

 Feedback will tell more about the feedback giver than about the feedback receiver. 

As a manager, you will be the one, who gives feedback in most cases. (Peer and downline feedback are highly encouraged and supported in modern organizational environments; however, practice still needs to catch up with the theoretical background).

During your work, you are being evaluated with scrutiny by your team all along the way. They will know how you are performing on the job just as well, if not better than you will know the same about them.

This is equally valid for the evaluation discussion. When you are giving feedback, you are being evaluated by your listener. How professional, how objective you are, whether you are talking about the work or the person, how much you know about the work, how much of an expert you are in your field. How consequent you are, what importance you give to a constructive feedback. Whether you are an example to your team, and most importantly, if you walk the talk when you define your expectations.

Your feedback’s impact on your team will ultimately be determined by the answers they give to the above questions.

 Eliminate subjectivity as much as you can

Independent on who you face during an evaluation talk, you will have a preconceived, subjective opinion about the person. You will like him or dislike her. You will find traits particularly of your taste or of your dislike. If you are in the position of giving an evaluation, you have already worked with the person. Based on your personalities and working styles, you can be introverted, the employee extroverted, you can be creative, the employee analytic, you can be organized, the employee seeing through chaos, and any combination of the above and several other personality markers.

Before entering a feedback session, make a conscious account of these differences, evaluate what makes a simple character difference and how the work is objectively affected. Make sure that the frictions in your workstyles are not reflected in your feedback as an evaluation or judgement. 

Opinions, such as ‘you’ve done a great job’ or ‘you need to improve your performance’ are your subjective views and as such are irrelevant. If you want to express your appreciation or improvement expectations, always use facts and data instead of comparative adjectives.

Your task is to discuss how to get from point A to point B the fastest and most efficient way. You need to confirm if the track of your vehicle follows the route originally assigned. If the originally marked route still correct at all. Do you need to proceed faster or slow down? Do you need to make an adjustment left or right? As the captain of a ship – you should be giving constant input, feedback about changing the tracks, going slower or faster, adjusting to different winds and storms. At the same time, listen carefully to the feedback from the engine house. Engine overheat is as critical on a ship’s route as employee burnout in the organization. 

In lack of hard evidence, “In my opinion…” is the appropriate phrase

Those, who have seen the TV series “The Good Wife” will recall the judge, who always requested the prosecutors and attorneys to start or end all their statements by ‘In my opinion...’.

As a last resort, if you don’t have unquestionable facts in hand, this humble phrase will help you in setting right the context for your feedback.

Distinguish the tasks for human capital planning from those for performance evaluation 

I have recently read an evaluation, which I would find funny, should it not have serious consequences on a person’s work and career. The evaluated manager was deemed as low performer, who needs improvement, because he is too creative, brings new ideas and programs to the market, when it was previously agreed that he should simply execute the ready-made, available programs. This employee’s annual evaluation was concluded as “low performer, needs improvement”. 

It is understood, that when a company finds itself in difficult times, when they need to pull the belt tighter and concentrate on savings, they will need an executor, who strictly follows the saving lines as opposed to a creative manager, who drives investments into new opportunities. When a manager in the position of high saving expectations is a creative person, it will be a difficult match between the individual’s profile and the actual job.

This issue, however, needs to be solved in human capital planning and not in performance management. The profiles of managers need to be carefully matched with the needs of an actual job. An analytical person will never enjoy leading a creative team and a creative person will have difficulties with shining in accounting. While both individuals might excel in the job that fit their profile they may harshly fail in a non-matching job. It is counterproductive to label them as “low performers”; directing them to challenges, where they are motivated to achieve using their best skills would offer the highest benefit both for the organization and for the individual.

Performance labels

We still see evaluation systems occasionally, where uplines need to label team members’ performance.

Such labels include “low performer / needs improvement”, “core / solid / strong performer”, “high / top / extraordinary performer”.

Complementary to the labels, strict percentage limits might apply for the individual categories (for example, only 10% of the organization can be high performer) for budgeting reasons on the consequent rewards.

This kind of evaluation system has very little to do with constructive feedback, and as such, shall be the subject of a stand-alone study, how employee de-motivation can be counterbalanced.

On the Receiving End

What if I can choose the person who gives me feedback?

In a solicited, pull-feedback, you are searching for feedback on something you are interested in, from a person, who you regard as an expert or example in the subject. 

Most of us regularly search such feedback and truly welcome the input and support we receive.

 “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve,” Bill Gates once said, and nothing can be truer as long as we invite the feedback.

I ask my colleagues, friends, who have relevant experience in the subject I write about that they read my articles before I publish them. When training my dog, I always ask for advice from expert dog trainers. When building my coaching skills, I ask feedback from professional, accomplished coaches.

The two important common denominators for these feedback requests are that I ask for the input and I have specific questions where I need direction to be able to develop further. 

I never ask the dog trainer’s opinion what kind of a dog trainer I am - I ask, for example, a way how to overcome the dog’s fear in a certain situation. Neither would I want to know if highly accomplished coaches think that I’m a good coach or a bad coach. As I want to be a good coach, I ask them, for example, how to bridge a conversation from point A to point B in a specific situation.

This is the way you truly develop in any area of life or science.

Be aware that you are never alone. In today’s social media networks, you are surrounded by individuals, who will have more knowledge and experience in anything that you are trying to do and who are happy to give you the support you need for your development. Choose carefully who you ask, then do not hesitate to reach out to them, should they be colleagues in work, friends or connections on social media.

 Receiving feedback in your corporate organization

We rarely choose our managers. Depending on our subjective likes or dislikes of them, we may, or we may not want to hear any feedback from them. We surely do not want to receive feedback on all possible subjects and not as holistic truths. 

Remember, a performance discussion is as much your platform to give feedback to your upline as the other way around. It is also your best opportunity to ask questions and present the areas where you need support.

If you happen to be asked ‘what do you want’ - step over the obvious wishes of higher salary, better office space, free fruit baskets in the office. Prepare yourself to the conversation by thinking over what you really want. What you want to achieve in your career, in your life. Why are you in the place where you are. Do you want to develop yourself in your current line of work, or you want to achieve something completely different. Be prepared with plans and what you are ready to invest into realizing them. Once you are asked the question, it might happen that you will be heard and supported. 

It may also happen that your upline is settled for the not-so-constructive criticism, and the discussion is focused on your needs of change and improvements. In this case, be aware that your case was already ruled before your meeting. Judgement was delivered before you could say anything. You’d better save your efforts explaining your special conditions of economic setbacks, sales crisis, family tragedies. At best, this puts additional oil on the fire, which will widen the conflict between you and your upline further. 

The excellent coach and school founder, Mark Rayner’s recommendation is that we give the ultimate answer in situations where we are found to be not enough… or to be too much…: Thank you. Is there anything else?

 Conclusion

As a manager, you will be both giver and receiver of feedback. You are in the best position to shape both conversations based on your experiences with each side. You will also have influence on your organization’s performance management system. Even if this influence might seem tiny now, small steps add up to long distances.

Shape your discussions as much as you can, but most importantly, - independent on the experiences and good advice - keep the conversations up and running.