August 18, 2009Quick Tip: How NOT to give feedback
Has anyone ever given you a gift and dictated how you should use it? They gave you a picture and wanted it on the mantle when you put it on a table? They brought wine and insisted you use it immediately, even though you already had plenty open? That kind of control turns a gift into an achor or a burden.
Feedback can be the same way. Carl passed some feedback on to Linda about how her word choice offended a client. She thanked him for the suggestion and said she would be careful to avoid those words. But Carl kept pushing the issue. Linda didn’t understand why he didn’t take his word for it that she had received the feedback and would implement it and they would move on.
Later, Carl mentioned to Linda that he understood the feedback was hard for her to hear. She tried to explain that she had no issue with the feedback but wondered why he didn’t trust her to implement it when she had already said she would. It sounded to her as if Carl was tryiing to control how she heard the feedback.
Some people only need a whisper to get the point. When you push the point, it implies they aren’t professional enough to be able to implement the information you gave them.
Feedback is like a gift. You give it to someone and let it go. It’s theirs now.
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Thank you so much for this insight. I have a member of staff who has been given repeated feedback about problem behaviour, but has not mended his ways – to the point where he is now facing a written warning from a manager more senior than me. I have racked my brains, wondering why all my previous feedback hasn’t been acted on and how we got to this situation. Now I realise that this isn’t my problem – it’s my my job as his manager to give him the feedback, but it’s his choice whether he acts on it and improves, or whether he carries on in the same way and ends up firing himself.
Comment by Anita — August 20, 2009 @ 4:41 am
Ah, yes. I love the “firing himself” comment.
My performance management flow chart asks the questions, is it a don’t know, can’t do or won’t do situation? At times people don’t get it, even after you’ve told them in plain English. Often they only get it when they’re fired. Can’t do means they need training, or the job isn’t a match. But there are people who know what you want and can change but choose not to. Those are the people who fire themselves.
It’s sad when you want to help someone and they keep shooting themselves in the foot…
Comment by merylrunion — August 20, 2009 @ 10:26 am