Providing effective feedback is an area most managers struggle in. Employees complain to me all the time about their manager’s inability to communicate effectively with them.
Feedback the best way to provide clear communications, improve performance, understand potential issues, create behavioral changes and motivate.
I’ve interviewed more than 100+ senior leaders and managers to get their process of giving employee feedback. I’ve put together seven steps that any manager can use. It’s quick, easy, and highly effective feedback model.
The biggest barriers for employees to do great work are two-fold:
Unclear expectations
Inadequate skills
So a manager’s job is to give very clear directions and specific, explicit feedback so employees know where to aim and how to hit the target. They also get employees additional help and education on skill development.
Great managers provide feedback continuously, focus on employee strengths, and offer criticisms in private (not public forums).
Great managers also create a psychologically safe work environment and allow for healthy conflict and debates. They are willing to admit they don’t have all the answers and make plenty of mistakes.
Here is the model great managers use to provide effective employee feedback. Employees can also use this to.
1) Describe the when and where of the situation. 2) Describe the specific behavior that you want to address. 3) Describe how the action has affected you or others. 4) Ask them: “I’d like to get your take on it so I better understand what’s going on. Is there something I’m missing? How do you perceive it?” (Then discuss this) 5) Ask them: “What are the next steps you’ll take to change this? How can I help you?” 6) Proactively offer resources, ideas and guidance to help accelerate change. 7) Record the feedback and follow up
***PLEASE NOTE: Don’t “personalize” feedback, raise your voice or let emotions drive the conversation
Feedback gift, don’t be stingy with it. Employees want it. Lack of feedback is one of their top complaints. Be generous and help them.
You’ll see increased performance and results. It’s a win-win situation
Podcast interview w/ Jason Treu on why and how leaders must build self-awareness and social awareness if they want to create high performance organizations.
Jason talks about key concepts to understand when it comes to creating a high-performing culture, and what specific actions leaders and organizations can take, regardless of size, to quickly create an extraordinary culture. At the foundation of these concepts and actions are building trust, creating psychological safety, and open communication that strengthens interpersonal relationships. These are just a few of a the topics that we touch on in our discussion, and I can’t recommend this episode to my listeners highly enough! Jason was a great guest and I look forward to connecting with him again soon!
In looking through 2019 1H research studies here the top three drivers of employee attrition: compensation, career development opportunities and people management. Compensation has leaped into the number one position now. That should be very alarming for HR professionals.
HR should put renewed (or additional) focus attention in these areas and have strategic initiatives to deal with them.
Compensation is tricky. Employees are figuring out their worth and leveraging it to job hop. Organizations are overpaying for talent because they aren’t developing employees, poor employee engagement and experience and people managers don’t have the necessary skills to manage their employees.
All three of these go hand-in-hand. It’s not hard to see the linkages.
Compensation has vaulted into the number reason employees quit. That shows even less loyalty and engagement because money trumps everything else. That’s not the case for employees who love their jobs. But it is the case for those below that level.
Compensation really isn’t the issue. The above items go back to poor engagement, culture, teamwork, trust, psychological safety and other fundamentals that are broken. These are the real root causes.
It’s why it’s NOT getting better because it’s not being adequately addressed. It’s Ground Hog Day in 2019 like it was in 2018.
The solutions are much less expensive to deal with the root causes versus the leaves on the trees.
Have you ever admired those successful, confident, motivated, and charismatic people who seem to have it all? They’ve climbed the corporate ladder quickly or started a great business.
They’ve made all the right connections. They’ve mastered networking and how to build relationships. They’re very persuasive and created significant influence with people. And…all of this has opened up limitless opportunities for them.
Their secret? They are self-aware.
Jason Treu, executive business coach, joins Adam this week to share some of the tips he picked up working with influential leaders such as Steve Jobs (Apple & Pixar), Reed Hastings (CEO at Netflix), Mark Cuban, Mark Hurd (CEO at HP), and others.
Discover:
What is self-awareness;
Why self-awareness is important;
The key concept in understanding self-awareness;
How people make breakthroughs to change behaviors;
And much more!
Are you self-aware? Listen to this show and find out!
Allen Iverson Mentions Practice 22 Times in a Press Conference
Two things I’ve learned over the years that will allow you to be in the top 80% of whatever it is you choose to do. They are VERY simple to do. It comes down to showing up and practice (i.e. see Allen Iverson’s Practice Rant above)
First, it’s showing up. Today, most people don’t do something because they perceive it’s hard or “they don’t feel like it.” No one wants to show up all the time. You have to act in spite of how you feel. Sounds simple? It’s hard in practice.
Second, practice may not make perfect, but you will improve. I started running in 2017 after Thanksgiving. I never ran more than five miles ever. It’s not fun waking up at 4am several days of the week and early every single Saturday, while other people are sleeping and you could be too. Well I ran my first marathon, Chicago, in 3:40 minutes. It was much faster than I thought because my training was consistent and tough. I put in the miles and results paid off. The same thing happened in the my next marathons. In February I ran a 3:20 marathon, five months after my first one.
The same thing is when I first started coaching and doing workshops (like team building). You get better more you do. Sure, there are other factors that can significantly increase your growth, effectiveness, and success.
You learn more with every engagement and every time you do additional research.
You improve (even a tiny bit) each time you do something. Improvement is about very small changes over time (you think of that as a formula: Improvement = frequency x tiny changes
Marathon runner who’s been running for 10 years is probably better than someone running their first marathon. A seasoned business professional (CEO, CFO, CHRO) is probably better than someone in their first year working.
Great performers many times make it look easy. But they do because of endless, consistent practice.
Practice will make you much better than you were before. You may never be a master, a professional runner or New York Times Best Selling Author.
Practice and showing up really works. It will get you 80% of the way there.
