“What I Was Trying To Say Was…”: Overcoming Ambiguities and Delays in Work-Related Feedback

By Aaron Tabacco, PhD, RN

12 min read

“I was devastated. I walked into the meeting thinking I was doing a decent job and we were just going to touch base, and then I was given a sharp warning and placed on probation with an ‘improvement plan’ that didn’t make any sense to me. When I asked for specifics, I was told I needed to ‘work on my communication skills and my professionalism with coworkers and supervisors’. I was given four weeks to show I’d improved, or my employment would be terminated. I walked out having no clue what or how I was supposed to change.”

This scenario is one I have seen over and over again for many years in a couple of different contexts. During my time as an educator and administrator, I had often been called in to consult on cases where a student was near failing and dismissal for their performance in clinical practice settings. Similarly, I was on hand when new faculty were struggling with their own unique performance problems in their teaching. In far too many cases, we were at a point of almost no return. Previous feedback to the individuals in question was just as puzzling and ambiguous to me as it was to them. I would pour over earlier evaluations, written “warnings”, or “learning assistance plans” and see little to no useful information. In almost all of these cases, I had to go back to the supervisors or faculty in question and ask, “what is really going on here?” The response I received to that question most frequently was very telling: 

“They just aren’t ‘getting’ it.” 

As an expert in my own field, I can say I intuitively knew what I was being told. The under-performing person was likely struggling to do one of two things: integrate and apply knowledge in practical application, or to behave in ways appropriate to the role and environment. However, the ambiguity and timing of the feedback process was such that that these folks were now on proverbial “chopping blocks” and they were stunned to realize how dire the situation was. In fact, I would anecdotally say that in 90% to 95% of cases, I would find that I was sitting down with another human being - a student or colleague – near to tears, who was unable to sleep or eat or function because of the stresses and trauma they were experiencing by having been blind-sided by the possibility that they were failing and at risk of losing their place. 

In my mind, this is not only a huge potential legal problem, but it’s also a huge moral problem. No matter what the focus of our business or practice, we are all human beings who deserve respect, honesty, clarity, and compassion. I am an ardent fan of the work of Brené Brown and others who are pushing hard to bring the science of humanities to bear on human workplaces. Not everyone can or will succeed in their specific roles or environments all the time. And that is okay! But what is not okay, is to unfairly deny someone the opportunity to truly improve their work. We all can point to places in our own histories where we simply didn’t get the job done well because we lacked something key to do what was required, or we didn’t quite understand the culture or values of the environment. In that, we can all find a place of empathy and compassion. 

To defend those on the other side of this equation, I’ve also seen that in that same 90-95% of times, those responsible for generating and giving the feedback were also ill-prepared and struggling. It was not that these folks were egregiously seeking to be hard-handed torturers of others. It was that they struggled with two, correlated things: language and confidence. When supervisors have the ability to access the language of authentic evaluation, they feel more confident in giving it. And when they feel more confident, they are more direct, more substantive, more timely, and more compassionate. As Brené says, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”

But how does this type of clarity happen? How do we move from the ambiguity of “they just don’t get it” (which feels laden with judgement and frustration) to authentic, actionable evaluation? How do we overcome our hesitancy to speak up and say what we perceive to be "hard" things? I could (probably I should, but it will have to wait for another day) write an entire book on this subject, deeply informed by my work as a nurse, professor, coach, and leader. For now, I’ll distill my best advice into some key practice points for ease.

1) Frame everything as learning and you will find room for ‘grace’. On the very first day of any course I have ever taught in nursing, I take my students on a journey through my core beliefs about learning. One of them is that all knowledge is co-created and as such, we will be learning new things together, including me. As their teacher, supervisor, and leader, I too will gain new knowledge that will improve my practice of teaching and nursing. Since that also implies there are things we ALL don't know, that means that there is plenty of room for grace. That grace can allow us to be understanding, compassionate, vulnerable, and kind with each other. I always promise to meet them where they are and ask them to do the same with me. In that way we are all learners on a journey of discovery. How much easier is it to have compassion and patience with someone when they are framed in your mind first as a learner, rather than an assumed expert doer? This shared vulnerability as learners makes it easier to approach one another which, in turn, increases the likelihood of timely feedback.

2) Act early. In all work situations, there is learning involved. Even if the person hired into the new position comes with a wealth of experience in the role, he, she, or they are new to the role in your workplace. Thus there will be a learning curve. Early feedback is helpful and crucial in preventing long-term and larger-scale problems. In fact, I can guarantee that learners want to know how they are doing. The need for feedback can drive the supervisor to the point of annoyance. But in the case of struggle, beware the temptation to hold back because you know they are new, and you think the problem will just “work itself out”. Too often crises develop and harmful outcomes occur because a supervisor wanted to continue to “see what would happen” before taking action. I’ll speak to the underlying fears that drive this hesitancy later. But first, determine that you will speak up early, clearly, and kindly. Make this a value of your own practice as a human in a human workplace. 

3) Assume goodwill. Far too often I have overheard supervisors pontificate about the underlying lack of values or knowledge, toxic personal agendas, or willing disobedience that they feel simply must explain the performance of the struggling learner. One of the first questions I ask when seeking more information when I am hearing these kinds of complaints is, “Is this an observation, or a judgment?” That reflective question tends to draws us away from emotion and toward more objective discovery. And if we assume goodwill rather than some sort of malignancy is motivating the struggling learner, is tends to open the eyes so we also account for positive behaviors that should be noted in addition to the deficits. This will eventually help to paint a clearer, more holistic picture. Assuming goodwill re-frames the entire way of looking at the situation of a struggling learner, lowering our own defensiveness and opening us to curiosity.

4) Approach problems with a sense of judgment-free wonder. This tip alone could probably change your life by positively impacting all of your personal and professional relationships. This is higher-order, reflective, centered, and emotionally intelligent thinking. When you are observing poor performance, dysregulated behavior, or any other unproductive and maybe even damaging actions by a learner, stop yourself. Take a deep breath. Resist the urge to interpret and then judge what you have seen. Instead, approach this with the questions, “I wonder what is happening here? I wonder what thoughts, knowledge, or feelings this person has right now?” And then open a conversation with them. If you have been able to set aside your own feelings of judgement and your own responses to what you’ve seen or heard, you can bring this true curiosity to bear in your feedback discussions almost immediately. It helps in solving the problem of delayed feedback, even if you aren’t yet sure how to respond to what you will hear from the learner when you ask. As a direct benefit, when struggling learners are approached this way, they also tend to sense curiosity, rather than condemnation and this allows them to feel safe. Their feelings of security will lead to much more honesty in sharing, which will put you both on a solid path to correct the problems you’ve noticed. 

5) Recognize that all behavior is communication. This tip comes from years of my clinical practice experiences working with neurodiverse children, as well as being a father to three of my own. When a learner is behaving in a way that is unproductive, inaccurate, or inappropriate do not simply assume it is negligence, ineptness, or willfulness. Your newfound approach of wonder should lead you to a specific question about what the behavior means. Ask yourself “I wonder what this person is communicating by doing this?” Behavior is like an iceberg and what you are seeing and hearing is only the 10% that is above the surface. Old-school HR and Leadership practices have long preached a gospel of control that indicates those things below the surface to be a likely mire of personal issues that are inappropriate for workplace intervention.  But I can say definitively that my practices have shown me no true progress toward resolution can take place without knowing what is underlying the behavior itself. In some cases, it may be that what is happening is an unfortunate convergence between the struggling learner’s life path and career path. And of course, their life path is not your journey to assist with. However, recognizing the authentic person and their needs in that situation can help you better parse out those parts that are about their work so that you eventually develop a solid plan to fix them. Whether or not they can take advantage of that and meet the expectations is ultimately up to them. But at least in this case, you will have addressed the authentic challenges because you looked beyond the behavior to find out what needs were really being communicated below its surface. 

6) Find objective, concrete, substantive, judgment-free language anchored in skills, competencies, and behaviors. This is perhaps the biggest issue in all of this messy feedback situation and deserves an entire article in its own right. In fact, I’ve given several faculty workshops over the years to help colleagues learn to write out more authentic evaluation feedback and craft more useful and focused learning assistance (i.e. performance improvement) plans. I find that the best way for supervisors to learn to do this is to pair up with another supervisor. One acts as the active, critical listener taking an approach of wonder to ask questions, while the other tells specific stories that describe the struggling learner’s behaviors. [Of course, I’ll interject that privacy ethics and laws should be carefully observed so follow your organization’s protocols for this.] As I am often the active, upstream listener, I stop to help identify what is objective vs subjective language; what is observation vs interpretation; what is concrete vs abstract. For example, when a supervisor says, “He is just flat out rude to people and he’s isolating other team members”, I might ask “Rather than interpret that as rude and isolating, tell me specifically what that looks like. What was he doing in a particular instance that leads you to interpret this way?” That moves the conversation to more objective, descriptive language of the problem. And that points toward actionable areas for the learner’s development. In pairs, we can check and balance our biases to come to more clarity and objectivity. It is much more clear, accurate, and compassionate to be able to say to the learner, “I notice that when we are in meetings, you interrupt coworkers as they speak, and the effect of that is that it shuts down dialogue and idea sharing” vs “You are rude and your communication style is pushy.” It also helps one shift from the person toward the behavior. This is much less likely to trigger defensiveness that closes off the struggling learner.

7) Yes, act early; but also be reflective and take the time and resources you need to have clear language. As your skill approaching the giving of substantive, outcome-focused, judgment-free feedback grows, you will feel more confident tackling things “in-the-moment”. However until that time (or even when you have mastered this but perhaps when the magnitude of a problem dictates) it is really important that you as the supervisor have leaned into reflective practice. One really big key to excellent, helpful feedback is that the one giving it has been able to separate themselves from the situation, approach things with wonder, become aware of their own biases, and moved toward objectivity and specificity. That takes time and intention. While I advocate for proximity – give the feedback as close as possible to the events – I also feel it is important to take the time you need to look deeply inward and access resources like other colleagues for the paired conversation exercise. One indicator that you are ready to move to the feedback encounter is that any initial feelings of hesitation, fear, or uncertainly have diminished and your confidence has grown. Another important indicator is that you can point to objective specifics using clear language. You might not get days and weeks to do this, but even 24 hours of intentional reflective work can be a major benefit for achieving the best outcomes for all involved. 

8) Write it all out and share the work. Written documentation is the subject of an entire world of HR and General Counsel specialty. I am not even going to broach that subject. But what I do want to say is that you really need to do this work up front, if at all possible. Or if working in the moment, that you are taking notes together with the learner and then typing them up to share following the conversation. Obviously, even with the best skills of clear, compassionate, objective feedback giving, these conversations are still stressful for learners. And when learners are under stress, guess what happens to learning and retention!  And of course, the person giving the feedback is not immune to these stresses and effects either. The act of writing things out is important for three reasons. First, it will be yet another reflective practice that helps you look for biases, interpretations, and judgments in your observations so you can eliminate them. Second, it helps you see what is abstract vs concrete in your language so you can move that toward clarity. Third, it will give you a structured way to move though the feedback and then give something tangible to the learner. They should be allowed to keep these instruction as they will need to refer back to them later when their stresses have diminished. As a follow-up practice, I always plan to meet briefly with the learner the following day and ask them to bring their written feedback/improvement plans so we can ensure their understanding. The day after is often the better day for clarifying remaining questions and helping the learner move into action as things have been able to settle in their minds and hearts a bit. 

9) When communicating expectations for improvement, ensure that you use a structured framework. Of course, there are many structured ways to approach written feedback, but I do find that using something like the SMART Goals framework is helpful to both you and the learner. The very nature of having to articulate desired outcomes that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-oriented goes a long way in helping you to avoid traps of ambiguity. And everyone seems to like metrics. I’m old enough to have lived through several “buzzwagons” (my little combination of buzzword and bandwagon) over the years, from the Franklin Day Planner days of the 80’s and early 90’s to the present “KPI” obsession we live in now. No matter what the chosen framework, articulating written, actionable items that have come from judgment-free wonder and assumptions of goodwill on the tails of productive conversations, is highly desirable for all. 

10) It’s not about you. Your discomfort or needs cannot be the causes of your ambiguous communications and/or the reason for your delays. It is very difficult to overcome those two barriers of ambiguous language and lacking confidence when what you are bringing to the conversation is a focus upon your own needs. The most common reason I have heard supervisors state they delayed giving critical, clear feedback is, “But I don’t want them to hate me! I don’t want them to be mad at me.” Reflective practice helps us examine our own feelings of vulnerability and fear, acknowledge their presence, and then set them to the side. Time after time, in cleaning up messes related to delayed, ambiguous feedback, the struggling learner told me that even though it was hard to hear, they wanted to hear it. Our learners – our colleagues and co-workers – are committed to doing a good job. They are committed to enjoying their work and their co-workers. They want to be successful, reliable, and esteemed contributors. As the learner in the situation, they are relying upon you and your expertise to guide and mentor them. It is very important to learn to set aside the self and "be with" the learner who needs our help.

11) Bonus Tip: Ambiguity in positive feedback is just as problematic, and a missed opportunity. This point often gets little attention when it comes to feedback because many leaders focus on feedback-by-exception, meaning they only really speak up when things go wrong. This hyper-focus on negativity means that the default position for satisfactory performance is “You’re doing fine. No problems here.” The challenge with this kind of ambiguity is that in a learning situation, the learner has no concrete language and clear mental picture of those specific things that are working so they can continue to explore and do them. It also comes across as insincere, dismissive, and gratuitous. Learners struggle in new environments because of the ambiguity of expectations and surroundings. Concrete, authentic, positive feedback can be reassuring and trust-building because it helps define the boundaries of the spaces between people, jobs, functions, and processes. “Great job communicating! Keep it up!” is much less helpful than, “Great job with that email. You really nailed the culture of our organization when you thanked the team members in Production by name. That kind of communication really strengthens our relationships here.” By being ambiguous with positive feedback, we miss opportunities to reinforce specific actions, behaviors, and values that we want to see multiply in the work.