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As a manager, you have no more important responsibility than providing an effective accountability process for everyone you supervise. Above all, you must be the one who inspects what is expected of the whole team. The process is sometimes awkward, and when it comes to dealing with difficult people or controversial issues, it can appear downright unpleasant. However, it comes with the territory, and your team is relying on you? probably more than you even realize ? to implement a fair and consistent accountability process that will provide regular feedback to everyone and keep the team on track moving toward its goals.
Here is a strategy for giving regular, consistent feedback that will help your team members improve their performance on a daily basis. Whether you want to reinforce good behavior (sometimes referred to as providing Confirming feedback) or change unacceptable behavior (also known as providing Productive feedback), there are certain steps you should follow to make it work.
1. Do it ASAP. When you observe a team member behavior– whether positive or negative - you need to say something right away. It’s not much use saying something weeks later. If you don’t, your team members will assume that you didn’t notice or don’t care, or that it doesn’t matter.
2. Do it in private. Too often, managers or project leaders will give a member of their team productive feedback in front of other team members, or even customers. Some managers believe that if they’re seen and heard giving feedback it will have an effect on other team members. It will have an effect, but it is almost always negative.
3. Confirm that it’s okay to speak. If a team member has just finished handling an important phone call, they might have some administrative things to do before they forget what was said. If you interrupt to provide feedback, you risk being responsible for an important follow-up task not getting completed in a timely fashion.
4. Begin by announcing your intentions. If your team members are not accustomed to receiving regular feedback, when you ask to speak with them they may assume that they’ve done something wrong. It’s important, therefore, to tell them up front what you want to speak about.
You might say, "Jill, I’ve just read your last report, and I’d like to give you some good news." You then proceed to give them your confirming feedback. Remember to make it specific.
5. Tell them how YOU feel about their behavior. Make sure they understand that the feedback you provide is coming from you. Avoid saying things like, "It doesn’t matter to me, but you’d better improve your performance or you’ll be in trouble with the big brass." Instead, use "I" messages. Get personally involved; say things like, "I appreciate the way you followed through with that late assignment."
6. Focus on one thing at a time. Don’t confuse your team member with a laundry list of behaviors. If it’s confirming feedback, then don’t say, "I like the way your positive attitude and your reports are always done on time, and it’s great that you’re achieving your target." This "grab bag" approach dilutes the feedback process so that your message it loses its impact.
7. Don’t make it personal. Whether you are providing confirming or productive feedback, it is very important to focus on behaviors and actions rather than on the personality of the individual. Instead of saying, "The problem with you, Mike, is that you’re lazy," say, "Mike, productivity in this area is too low. It must improve significantly beginning this week."
8. Be specific. However, don’t leave it that general. It is better to say, "Mike, you must clear at least 20 cases a day, beginning tomorrow. What can I do to help you reach this target?"
9. Get input. When giving productive feedback, it’s important to go beyond just complaining, and focus on a positive solution. In order to generate this solution, you must get the team member’s input. You might say, "I’m unhappy that this is the third time this month your report has been late. However, I’m willing to listen to what you have to say and discuss how we can resolve the situation. Do you have any suggestions for how to solve this problem?"
10. Don’t leave them low. This is particularly important after giving productive feedback. Remember, this isn’t an attack on the person; it’s about job-related behavior. A team member should come out of a productive feedback session with his sense of self-worth intact. Try to end on a positive note that focuses on a constructive solution.
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Management Quick Tip – Listen to Your Team Members
You probably invested a lot of time and money searching for and interviewing the best candidates you could find, and then spent even more time and money training them. If you are confident that you have put together a good team, then you ought to trust them enough to solicit their feedback. We are not talking about putting a suggestion box by the water cooler, either. Reach out to them as individuals, tell them their opinion is important to you, present a situation you are working on, ask for their feedback, and LISTEN to what they have to say. If you don’t trust them enough to listen to them, you shouldn’t have hired them in the first place.
