Feedback to Push Groups Forward (Part 2)

We're working on the 'Five Tips Everyone Can Use to Give Feedback'

3. Ask the person your giving feedback to about their skills and behavior. Make it a conversation. Inviting the person into the feedback discussion is just good sense. It is going to make everyone feel more comfortable. It will make the tone of the meeting more conversational. Also, it's going to build repore with the two people to build a stronger relationship.

Here's an example a sales manager could use when talking to one of their saleswomen.

1) What techinques did you use this month to maximize your total sales?
2) What methods did you use to most effectively use the sales leads?
3) How could we improve the team performance for next month?


4. Be Open and Impartial to Possible Outcomes - When you give feedback, you have to let the person respond the way they want to. Any attempt to use manipulation, or try to have a person be 'forced' to use a new behavior is only going to cause more difficulties in that relationship.

You can not control the consequences, you can only really influence the behavior. Of course we all have goals and expected outcomes that would be great. First, planning for consequences is not always practical. Secondly, there are ethical considerations if the only concern is the consequences.

5. Create the possibility for how individuals, groups and systems can improve. If your in a position to give feedback, be able to show where growth can take place. There is always room for improvement, so be a vehicle for positive change. We all have blindspots, and differing perspctives; so take the time to genuinely help others improve.



Book Recommendation - "Other People's Habits" by Aubrey Daniels.

This is book gives fantastic advice about organizational behavior management. Concise, clear, and very practical advice. It's applicable to many areas outside of the workplace, and is a great addition to your bookshelf.

Feedback to push groups forward

The book used to discuss feedback for this blog post is Mel Siberman's "The Consultant's Big Book of Organizational Development Tools: 50 Reproducible Intervention tools and Activities to Help Solve Client's Problems.

This is a fantastic book for organizational develoipment practioners (a.k.a. OD practioners). It involves addressing the practical problems of organizational behavior in teams. Chapters focus on group formation, conflict, coaching and feedback.

Feedback is critical to the millenial generation. According to Abanet.org, millenials need "supportive work environments" and have "demands and high expectations". So whether as a manager, or a peer, be prepared to give feedback to your younger bretheren.


Five Rules of Giving and Recieving Feedback Everyone Can Use (From Silberman's book):

1) Recognize Strengths - As my cousin pointed out to me recently, "Nothing motivates a person like praise." Strengths are not always obvious, but after repeated interactions with someone, you get some indicators about particular behaviors that make them effective in their position. Use any word you like: motivator, listener, organizer, creative force, flawlessly excecutes, or free-thinking maverick. There are all sorts of labels for strengths we have.

The importance of positive reinforcement can not be overemphazied if you want a workplace where people enjoy their work and perform at their best. Recognizing people's strengths can remind people of their contributions to the group or organization. This isn't too say there won't be conversations that require disipline or difficult topics that need to be discussed. Simply put most conversations requiring feedback should have positive reinforcment, and there is no better place to start then strenghs.



2) Describe Behaviors - People can alter behaviors. Framing things as "behaviors" gives responsibility to the individual to improve a behavior. If we frame something as personality factors, the criticism is virtually unchangeable.

Consider this example

1. "Bob, you are coming to meetings 5 minutes late"
2. "Bob, you are a tardy person"

By showing a person a behavior that is disruptive, they can then use the information to change. They either will or won't make a change. In a fair way, it forces the person to own that behavior.

Telling people they are this, or they are that is not only going to cause reactive behavior (probably more disobedience, or lack of concern), but ultimately may cause that person to negatively view themselves because of the reinforced frame words. Consider the negative impact of name calling or objectifying people.


Part 2 Later This week