Your colleagues are waiting for it - feedback

65% of employees would like to receive more feedback (source: trailhead.salesforce.com)

Background

In my consultancy experience many business owners, including those running an orthodontic practice often want to share with their staff that there are things they would like to see done differently. Be it in terms of attitude, quality or patient service they often do not know how to offer proper feedback to their employees.

Often this happens, because they do not want to risk starting a conflict or offend a valuable team member.

Business impact

What started as a simple opportunity for an employee to hear feedback, transformed into another task for an owner.

What's the result? In some cases, it means that some procedures will not be improved - for example debonding of brackets (removal) - and therefore orthodontists who are often the owners don't delegate the task thinking that it can be done “faster and better” by themselves. This in turn means that there is another responsibility on the owner's shoulders, adding to an already busy schedule.

What started as a simple opportunity for an employee to hear feedback, transformed into another task for an owner. And one that will continue for years to come, as it seems more and more difficult to give constructive feedback with time passing by.

The method

I have worked with a number of customers who experienced the above and implemented an effective feedback structure that does not require you to spend hours practicing.

But first - couple things to remember.

For feedback to be effective, you need to make it:

• Objective - it would be the same if anyone else was a receiver
• Specific as possible - focused on a particular situation
• Having good intent - helping someone to improve
• Actionable- receiver, like an assistant or team member needs to be able to use it either by doing something differently or reflecting on it

There is one main point to avoid:

• vague/not specific - any description that is paired with "sometimes you ...", you "always/never"

How to give feedback?

What I have learned from introducing this simple structure, is that it can be very challenging to give the very first feedback. It does become easier from then on. The effects will be visible as well.

Remembering that giving feedback has to be simple, try this acronymed structure “SBI” 

S - Situation 

B - Behaviour 

I - Impact 

Let’s use one of the examples that often happen in orthodontic practices

S - Billy, I would like to talk to you about how patients were managed before lunch today

B - I have noticed that when we were late with appointments, you rushed them to the chair, and did not offer any of the patients “hello” or “goodbye” simply saying “next” 

I - The impact of this is that patients might not feel they have received enough attention and curtesy when they had to wait for us 

Seen something positive, and want to give feedback? Use SBI too

S - Billy, I would like to talk to you about how patients were managed before lunch today

B - I have noticed that when we were late with appointments, before inviting a patient to the dental chair, you offered them our apologies for the delay and asked if they have been offered a glass of water while waiting

I - The impact I have observed is that they were really impressed by your level of care, and immediately cheered up. 

Next steps:

Now that the situation, behaviour and impact was described is it over? It is important you work together with the one receiving feedback, on actions to address it. Here are some questions you can use to follow-up:

• What would help you address this situation differently?
• What can you start/stop/continue doing? 
• How can I help when this happens again? 

One of the lessons I have learned from introducing this simple structure, is that it can be very challenging to give the very first feedback. It does become easier from then on. The effects will be visible as well. Just see the data below: 

(Source: trailhead.salesforce.com)

What challenging situation where feedback was needed did you encounter?

Your colleagues and employees are waiting for you. Go and give them some feedback!

#Feedback #Consultancy #Orthodontics #dentistry #businessmanagement #employees #companyculture

*All data points and SBI coming from a great source on how to give feedback: #Salesforce #Trailhead https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/manage_the_sfdc_way_motivate_and_champion/motivate_and_champion_giving_feedback