5 Fast Facts For Providing Constructive Feedback

Tuesday 19 June, 2012

by Shaun McCarthy

Organisational performance is people dependent - in that there is a direct link between a constructive culture and sustained organisational effectiveness. Feedback is a key component of a constructive culture and the most critical component of feedback is in the delivery. And getting it right the first time can often make all the difference.

In the work environment, constructive feedback plays a key role in managing the performance of an individual and the wider organisation, where all our communication skills and experience as leaders is put to the test.
To help ensure that your company grows, that the performance of your team continually improves and that your company culture remains constructive and purposeful, find below the 5 fast facts for providing constructive feedback:

1. Always have a goal in mind
   
   What do you want to achieve? With the goal in mind, plan out how you should best go about providing the feedback. Generally there are four possible desirable outcomes from providing feedback:
   
   
   • Resolving problems - Helping the individual solve a problem related to their work - this is often referred to in leadership as ‘task facilitation'
     
   • Supporting performance - Often referred to as ‘mentoring', this involves providing guidance and assistance in ‘how best to get something done'
     
   • Teaching - Actually helping the individual learn how best to achieve something
     
   • Adjusting performance - Confronting a performance issue
     
2. Have a forward (future) focus
   
   Whilst feedback, by its very definition, involves looking at the past, feedback is only helpful when it is used to determine what needs to be done differently in the future. A ‘future orientation' (what can we do about this) is much more constructive than a ‘past orientation' (you did this) one. Focus on what can be done better rather than what is wrong. The past is just that - it's gone, but the future is what can change.
   
3. Be specific and descriptive
   
   All too often, feedback and ideas for the future are too vague. A classic example is when a manager says to an employee "You've got to show more commitment". For the individual to be able to do something with this information, they need to know what commitment actually looks like. Ask yourself the question (in this example) "What will I want to see this person doing for me to think that they have greater commitment?". This is particularly important if providing feedback about ‘attitudes' or ‘behaving to the organisation's core values'. If you want the person to be ‘a better team player', then describe what this actually looks like and make sure the individual understands this.
   
4. Listen to the other person's agenda
   
   When confronting a performance issue, it is inevitable that the employee will see the issue from a different perspective to the manager. Whilst the manager might see these as ‘excuses' or ‘irrelevancies', they are real to the employee. Ignoring them simply results in compliance rather than commitment, with no subsequent real improvement. Genuinely listening to the other person's ‘agenda' opens up the conversation for potential problem-solving discussion, which is far more likely to actively involve the other person as opposed to being ‘lectured to' about some deficiency.
   
   If you can solve the problem from the employee's perspective, then you have a very elegant solution. If however, once you have discussed the issue in this way and see that your agenda is not being met, then carefully reintroduce the issue from your perspective. As you now have the employee actively involved in a discussion, and they have seen that you are interested in their perspective, you are more likely to arrive at a workable solution.
   
5. Use feedback to build positive relationships
   
   Even in an adjusting performance discussion, the goal should always be to ensure that a positive relationship is maintained between the manager and the employee. Any feedback discussion that results in a lessening of this is a failure. This begins with the manager's attitude. It ends with the manager ensuring that the individual involved has been listened to and involved, rather that lectured to or told off.
   
   ‘Confronting performance' is different to ‘being confrontational' and ‘giving feedback' is different to ‘telling someone off'. Remember the goal of giving feedback is improved performance, and that requires the commitment rather than compliance on the part of the employee. They need to walk away thinking "That was helpful to me".

Source:ceoonline.com