TM - October 2007 - (Page 24) recruitment & retention assessment & evaluation compensation & benefits performance management learning & development succession planning eye or better interpreting the rules. Further, formal evaluation likely offers concrete examples, backs observations with facts and considers performance in context rather than in the heat of the moment. In reality, Major League umpires review every game on video to evaluate their performance and examine mistakes carefully to compare reality to their interpretation of reality as it happened. The groans of 40,000 fans can be a hint that the 3-2 pitch was a ball, not a strike (as called), but watching the video is irrefutable. We don’t have video — we can’t go back and review the tape, but there are some things every manager can do to provide feedback that’s more accurate and useful. Before we get into what makes for effective feedback, we need to address the idea that feedback can (or should) be 100 percent objective. Objectivity is one of those concepts that sounds great in theory but is completely impractical in real life — and not all that useful. Subjectivity is exactly what makes great managers great, and we rely on our managers to use their impressions of employees to form opinions and make judgments about leadership potential, project responsibility and many other work-related decisions. There is no place for Don’t Shoot the Messenger A Positive Spin on Negative Feedback Tegan Jones Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news. In a business environment, this is especially true. Unfortunately, managers are required to make sure their team members reach their full potential. When employees fall short of that goal, supervisors are responsible for letting them know how they need to improve. Yet, in the name of keeping the peace, many managers put off delivering negative feedback until it’s absolutely necessary. Then, once the deed is done, they avoid ever mentioning the issue. Others mask the reprimand with euphemisms and niceties, making it difficult for employees to understand what behaviors, if any, they need to change. This lack of effective feedback can create uncertainty and frustration. When employees lack firm guidance about what they are doing right and wrong, they can easily become disengaged, said Duane Giannini, Newtown Savings Bank vice president of HR. “If a person doesn’t really know where they stand, positive or negative, you could have underlying issues that affect the efficiency of a department or, ultimately, the efficiency of the business,” he said. As part of its leadership development and succession planning program, Investing in People (developed by Learning Dynamics), Newtown Savings Bank works to encourage its managers to offer more thorough feedback consistently. Managers often fail to offer feedback because they don’t know how, Giannini explained, so offering them effective feedback techniques helps make them more comfortable with the process. By keeping the conversation centered on specific behaviors that need to be altered, managers can provide employees with a focused strategy to improve their performance, said Laura Tashjian, training and development manager — by staying away from discussions about individual personality traits, leaders can keep their reports from getting too defensive. “If somebody needs to make a change, you have to decide what you want the individual to do or stop doing,” she said. “You have to focus on the behavioral change first and then provide them with performance-level expectations so they come out of these meetings with an action plan and follow-up steps to work with.” Making performance evaluations part of an ongoing conversation also can help reduce negative feedback’s impact. Additionally, this practice can give managers the opportunity to offer positive comments when a worker has done something well — acknowledging good behavior, as well as bad, is critical to keep a team functioning properly, Tashjian said. “Sometimes, managers forget to give recognition for a job well-done and focus only on the problematic issue at hand,” she said. “That can lead to frustration on the employee’s part, where they’re thinking, ‘They’re only coming to me when something’s wrong.’” Creating this dialogue is especially important for growing organizations because they need to maintain and improve their communications with their employee base if they want to keep up productivity and morale while their interests expand, Giannini said. “In any organization, as you get larger, systems become more complex,” he said. “As those systems become more complex, your ability to communicate up and down the organization becomes critical, and anything you can do to enhance that ability, anything you can do to give your workforce another tool for their toolbox, is important.” 24 October 2007 talent management magazine www.TalentMgt.com http://www.TalentMgt.com
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