Welcome to part 5 of our New Leader Tuesday series on strengthening your feedback skills.
Part 1 tackled the issues of fear and anxiety that keeps so many new leaders from engaging in or conducting effective feedback discussions.
Part 2 emphasized the importance of assessing the feedback situation and establishing a direction for the upcoming discussion.
Part 3 helped us focus on the key ingredients required in every feedback discussion: behavioral, business rationale, candid and specific, involves dialog and timely delivery.
Part 4 offered guidance on starting the feedback discussion with an effective opening sentence.
In part 5, we turn our attention to managing the discussion.
Your planning work based on the guidance in the first four posts in this series is intended to set the stage for an effective, constructive discussion. And like any exercise in planning, one of the best outcomes of this hard work in thinking through your feedback situation is to help you navigate the sticky spots that arise in some feedback conversations. It’s the old military adage that the plan is useless once the battle is joined, however, the act of planning as a means of preparation is priceless.
Remember, your messaging must remain true to these six core issues identified in your planning process:
1. The purpose of the discussion is to strengthen behaviors that promote high performance and change or eliminate behaviors that detract from performance.
2. You observed a behavior that requires strengthening or changing.
3. You linked the behavior to business performance.
4. You established a direction for the outcome by classifying the feedback situation (empower, train, counsel, move towards termination).
5. You planned the time, location and you developed a simple opening sentence that describes the reason for the discussion.
6. You’ve vowed not to sugarcoat the situation in your opening sentence. Now is not the time for positive feedback if the discussion is on a constructive (difficult) topic.
Moving Beyond the Opening Sentence:
The best outcome after an opener is for the receiver to ask a clarifying question, acknowledge the issue and agree that a change is in order, and then support you in identifying ways in which he/she can facilitate the needed change. Some conversations flow nicely like this, and others make a few right and left turns before they end up at the correct destination (agreement on actions and follow-up). Here’s guidance on navigating those situations when the conversation flows off-course.
3 Challenging Situations and Ideas to Keep the Feedback Discussion On Track:
Challenging Situation Number 1: the receiver attempts to turn the discussion into feedback on your management failings.
Some individuals are masters of turning the discussion around and placing you on trial. Take the bait and start arguing and they’ll achieve their objective of derailing the intended discussion. Remember, you own the discussion. Don’t argue. Simply reiterate the purpose of the conversation (opening sentence) and encourage focus on and questions about this topic. Repetition is a good way of making your point and centering the receiver on the issues at hand.
John, our purpose here today is to talk about your frequent tardiness and to identify a plan for you to eliminate this tardiness.. As I indicated, you’ve been late to work 3 times in 3 weeks, and when you’re late, it puts a strain on the team that impacts quality. Do you understand the issue?
Challenging Situation Number 2: the receiver remains silent.
Silence is off-putting for many feedback givers, and many will strive to fill it by blabbing on and on and on and on, expecting the receiver to suddenly wake-up and participate. Your best strategy when faced with a silent receiver is to ask clarifying questions and to continue to politely ask for involvement in the process. If you don’t get involvement, you can ask them to come back to you tomorrow or later in the day with their ideas on improving/changing the identified behavior. If they choose to not participate, it’s up to you to set the actions and follow-up timing. This last step is not optimal…good feedback discussions are a dialog, so put extra effort in to gaining involvement.
Amy, is the behavior I described and the impact of this behavior on our business clear to you? (Typically a question will elicit at least a nod or monosyllabic grunt.) Great, let’s talk about how you can change this behavior and what support I can provide for you. What are your thoughts?
Challenging Situation Number 3: the receiver fails to accept accountability.
Similar to situation #1, the receiver opts to argue, dodge or deflect by pointing out everyone’s culpability. These are indeed challenging discussions. Your best offense in this situation is your own observation of the behavior in question. Provide specific examples and link those examples to the impact they have on business/team performance. Use the opening sentence and remind the receiver that this feedback discussion is about their behaviors, not the behaviors of others. Focus on guiding the receiver towards actions they can control.
Note: from time to time you’ll be tempted to offer feedback on behaviors that were described to you by others. Second hand feedback is the weakest form and one where you are effectively unarmed. While it’s tempting to pass it along, in my experience, you are much better served increasing the time and frequency of your observations of the individual, versus passing along something that is hearsay.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
While there’s a lot to the feedback process and to navigating these discussions with people, your own observations and solid planning combine to improve the odds of promoting constructive behavioral change. The feedback masters…those who are comfortable with even the toughest of discussions have practiced this so many times, they literally think about discussions in the framework that we’ve been developing over these 5 posts. What seems cumbersome and complex is something that with practice will be almost second nature. Like any professional, practice builds muscle memory and helps you identify and eliminate weaknesses.
I’ll wrap up this series in post number six with some bad habits to avoid and good habits to promote, including seeking feedback on your own feedback skills! For now, it’s time for you to hone your skills. Find the one feedback discussion you’ve avoided conducting and build your plan and engage in that discussion. There’s no time like the present.
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I see number 3 as being the hardest situation to handle. You really do need to come armed with tons of examples and even then you never know when you are dealing with issues than just work related ones.