Leading People: Having Those Feedback Conversations
Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, would stand on the street and ask people “How’m I doin?” He wanted feedback from New Yorkers about his performance as mayor.
I, too, like knowing how I am doing on the job so I can keep doing a good job or I can make changes to improve my work. But each year, when I completed my self-evaluation and my boss and I scheduled my performance review, I’d get a knot in the pit of my stomach. On the day of the review meeting, I would throw up right before I went into my manager’s office. My reviews were favorable and I would get a 4% raise and keep doing my job until the following year. I had good managers and they gave me fair reviews. But why did I have to wait one year to know how I was doing?
Once, I had a manager who I had to beg for performance feedback. I would ask him regularly for feedback and he’d reply “you’re doing a good job”. That’s it. No specifics. No concrete examples of where I was excelling or needed improvement. I had to put a meeting on his calendar each year for my performance review (you know, the one where I would get a raise) and he’d come up with some excuse to postpone or cancel.
After that, I just told myself that no news was good news. If my managers needed me to improve my work, then they would tell me, right? If I was making mistakes or I wasn’t headed in the right direction, they would tell me. It didn’t always happen that way.
In one job, I behaved badly. I was working 16 hours a day, sometimes 18 hours. I didn’t like the work. It wasn’t what I was hired to do and I was miserable. And I let everyone around me know it. But, my manager never told me to correct my behavior. He never told me I was making people miserable. No news is good news, right? I kept right on behaving badly. And making everybody miserable.
Eventually, I went back to working normal shifts and I could do the job I was hired to do. One day, I got to work and there was a stack of payroll change forms on my desk. I was responsible for making the payroll changes for employees. Every single manager got a raise. Except for me. My manager didn’t tell me I wasn’t getting one. Just left the stack of forms on my desk.
“Why was I the only one that didn’t get a raise?”, I asked.
“You didn’t earn it,” came his matter-of-fact response.
“No one ever told me I wasn’t getting a raise. Why don’t you think I earned it?”, I rebutted.
“Your attitude was terrible. No one liked working with you. I was afraid you'd quit your job if I said anything.”
“So, you’d rather I stick around and make everyone miserable rather than tell me I needed to change my behavior?”
“I was afraid you’d quit,” he repeated.
I wasn’t given the feedback I needed to hear, I wasn't given the opportunity to change and so I was denied the opportunity to earn a raise. I felt this was mismanaged and that my boss could have done better. Managers have many responsibilities when it comes to managing employees. Managers need to schedule employees to work, they need to give them tools and resources to do their jobs. They need to remove obstacles that prevent employees from doing their jobs and they need to communicate with employees about their work. What are the employees doing well? Tell them. What do they need to improve? Tell them. A lot of managers are really good at telling employees that their work is good. A lot of managers struggle with telling employees they need to improve or change their behavior.
There are many reasons why managers don’t give constructive feedback. They are afraid their message won’t be heard or they don’t know how to give feedback. They’re afraid of the employee’s reaction and the employee might become defensive; they’re afraid of a confrontation with the employee. Managers are afraid their employees won’t like them anymore.
Managers, this is me telling you to face your fears. Keeping underperformers around hurts the team, the customers, and the business.
I’ve adopted the following strategies to help me give effective performance feedback to employees:
Practice or role play with a trusted advisor or mentor to work through possible scenarios.
Have the meeting in a neutral location away from distractions.
Schedule enough time to have a true dialogue with the employee. You’ll want to give your feedback, but you also need to give the employee enough time to share their thoughts.
Make notes of what you want to tell the employee.
Put the employee at ease. Employees may get defensive because you’re talking about their work product, which can be very personal. Give them space to say what’s on their mind.
Listen, really listen, to what the employee is telling you.
Stick to the topic at hand. The employee may want to talk about other people’s behavior or other things they’ve seen, but direct the conversation back to their behavior and what they need to improve.
Talk about specific behaviors, not generalities, that you’ve actually observed.
Give them the support they need to change their behavior. Talk about ways that you are there to help them.
Have timely conversations. Don’t wait weeks or months to talk about poor behavior.
Check-in frequently with your employees. It doesn’t have to be a complete performance review, but let them know how they are doing more often than once a year.
Humans have an innate desire to learn and grow. They want to be successful in their jobs and if there is feedback that you are withholding, they can’t learn, grow, nor be as successful as they want to be. Managing people is not easy and giving performance feedback, particularly when you’re telling an employee they need to improve, may not be the best part of the job. But, it’s a necessary part of the job. Your employees will thank you when you are honest with them and you let them be the best they can be.
