How to give DIFFICULT FEEDBACK
Hi there, it’s Laura!
Today I wanted to talk about the new phenomenon that’s making the rounds on the internet called “quiet quitting” . When I first heard about this, I thought it just means that people stop showing up to work one day, effectively quitting but never really putting in their resignation. Imagine my surprise when I read that’s not the case at all.
Feedback Best Practices
As I mentioned above, giving feedback is an emotional moment so first and foremost, we need to get ahead of our own feelings before approaching our coworkers to discuss their work.
Don’t give critical feedback when you're upset or in the midst of crisis at work
Secondly, do it face to face if you can! It might seem more difficult - and let's face it, it is - but you'll gain respect if you master these interactions. Unfortunately, practice makes perfect in these situations. I don't think it gets any easier but you will simply get better at it. Of course, sometimes you have to give it as part of the annual feedback - and that’s fine -and in these cases you can't do it face to face if you're not their manager
Third, make sure you separate the person from the habit or the action. Actions are something that can be improved, that aren’t optimal but these are pretty nasty things to say to a person. Becoming personal in your feedback will cause the person to shut down and your feedback will be falling on deaf ears. For that, avoid starting your sentence with “You are…” because naturally what follows after is an adjective. Instead, try to focus on the actions that they took and the results that these had
Fourth, along the same line of thinking try not to jump to conclusions before you talk to someone. You might not have all the data points before talking to the person, so before you jump to accusations, try to understand why they acted the way they did.
2. Avoid the "Compliment Sandwich"
A lot of places on the net encourage the compliment sandwich, and I have to confess I absolutely hate it. In case you don't know what the compliment sandwich is, it's where you alternate between a positive/negative/positive. I don’t like using this because it might actually seem like the person is getting good feedback. After all, the positives are outnumbering the negatives you're mentioning to them so if you're not careful, your message actually won't be received. So instead of the sandwich, I like to do the following:
Delimit the feedback in time. I want you to take a separate moment in your day to give this feedback. Don't do it as part of your regular meeting and definitely not when it's not just the two of you. The focus of these few minutes is solely giving the feedback. You can say things such as
"I want to take a few minutes to give you some feedback..."
"I want to talk about your recent performance..."
Focus on the action and result. As I mentioned before, you want to make sure that you stay focused on the action and result.
Action: You did this ...
Result: The project was delayed, we lost the client etc.
Encourage self reflection. Here’s the kicker - it’s natural to just want to tell someone what to do and then expect them to merely go on their way just executing. However this isn’t scalable, so what you really want to achieve is this person identifying what they do wrong or any destructive habits that they might have and proactively either fix it or ask for help. Otherwise you’ll be in the constant position to try to shepherd them into the right most productive decisions. If they don’t seem to come to the conclusion of how to fix this themselves you can of course start guiding them to the right decision.
3. Respect the Proper Etiquette
I do want to stress that proper etiquette is to give someone feedback directly before you go to their manager. That being said, you should approach their manager if they aren't taking any accountability for their action. Similarly, if they’re not really receptive to this feedback, go ahead and speak to their manager. Mention that you already had a meeting with the person and gave them the feedback personally and you feel you’re getting nowhere.
I mentioned that the proper etiquette is going to the person first and then to their manager but I want to stress that this doesn’t really apply if you're dealing with gross misconduct. For example, if it’s a case of sexual harassment do go right away to your HR business partner and report that to them. My previous guidance is only for banal situations, such as a missed deadline.
4. In Case of Force Majeure
As much as I love my HR business partners out there I will say this: if there is an illegal activity that you are witnessing then go directly to the police! Skip the manager, skip HR and just go to law enforcement! HR is there to protect the company and they might try to dissuade you from going to the police in order to protect the company reputation. You don't want to get yourself involved in these issues so if you think that someone is breaking the law, please consider contacting the proper authorities
I hope you found this article useful, I would love to know your thoughts in the comments!
That's all for today, folks.
Until next time, this is Laura signing off.
