5 Pointers For Effectively Dealing With Negative Feedback

In my career so far, I have seen number of confrontations arising out of a negative feedback that is shared honestly. Some people disagree (or take it personally) when a negative feedback is shared in performance appraisal. Others don’t like it when client points out areas of improvement. As humans, we crave for validation and negative feedback does just opposite to that. It hurts our ego and hence we tend to instantly react, respond and confront. Equally true is the fact that all our growth depends on what we learn out of negative feedback we get.

In a way, giving or getting negative feedback is an inevitable part of our work lives. You can be on the either side, but by following some simple thumb rules, you can make it a constructive exercise. Here is what I have learned so far:

When giving a negative feedback

• Share perspective: Share some background information and build the stage. Direct feedback can be misconstrued.
• Be sincere: Make sure that when you deliver the feedback, it is heard in the right earnest. Be polite and firm.
• Be factual: Share your feelings but do not forget facts. Be conclusive.
• Don’t sugarcoat: We are naturally not comfortable sharing negative feedback and hence we make it mild. Keep it straight.
• Make it constructive: by offering help, solution alternatives, facilitation or arranging for external help. A negative feedback should help them grow.

When receiving negative feedback

• Listen: to the words, the body language and all that is not spoken, but still said. Take it all in.
• Don’t react immediately: Reacting instantly is considered as ‘being defensive’ unless you have facts on hand. Even when you do that, be polite and firm. Take time to think, if needed.
• Ask questions (to understand, not to defend): Open ended questions help in understanding the perspective and getting to the root of the problem.
• Accept wherever apt: Do not hesitate in accepting wherever apt. Accepting your flaws is a sign of strength, not weakness.
• Learn from the feedback: Treat every negative feedback as an opportunity to learn something. Make it constructive yourself, if the other person doesn’t.

Things to remember in both

• Be graceful: There is no substitute for grace at workplace. We all make mistakes, big and small. Key is to ensure that we maintain the decorum. Being firm doesn’t mean being rude.
• Be human: We are humans and we are sharing feedback with human. Seek to understand the other party, their views and concerns.

Have a FANTASTIC Friday!

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ALSO READ: On Constructive Criticism

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Managing Results by Defining “Deliverables” Early On

As professionals, we all are responsible for shipping stuff to our customers (internal or external). The stuff that we ship is commonly referred to as a “deliverable”.

As a manager, it helps if you can clearly define what deliverable means. The first step to get something right first time is to define it accurately in the beginning.

You can ask your team member to perform a task or you can ask them to complete a deliverable (complete with all product and process requirements). Defining a deliverable clarifies purpose and sets expectations on “why” rather than “what”. Most of the times, in quest of “what”, “why” is missed out. Clearly defining deliverables for all your team members helps them gain additional clarity and accomplishing things first time right.

I believe that most people want to do a great job, but they don’t know how to do it. Defining/assigning a complete deliverable instead of tasks can really help you in tapping full potential of your people and ensure that they are effective in whatever they do. When you review progress, you can review the accurate status of a deliverable (results), if it is defined early on. Monitoring deliverables is far less daunting than monitoring tasks.

Johanna Rothman says, “Discuss Results, Not Tasks”. Deliverables define the results you are seeking.

Have you ever experienced a situation where all your tasks were accomplished, but the final deliverable was not qualitative? If yes, you will exactly know what “defining a deliverable” really means!

Have a Wonderful Wednesday!

Note: My book ‘#QUALITYtweet – 140 bite-sized ideas to deliver quality in every project’ explores the people, process and leadership aspects to build a constantly improving organization culture. Check it out if you haven’t already!

Bonus: QAspire Blog was recently featured on Community of Program and Project Managers (PPM Community). Check out the feature.

Leadership Belief and Building ‘People-Centric’ Culture

As a leader, you can lead others with a belief that “people are good” – or with a fear that people will default. Your belief is reflected in the way you structure up your leadership team, set up governance processes and treat people. You can choose to provide space and freedom for people to perform or suffocate them with stringent monitoring policies.

Managing by inducing fear (penalties woven in the processes) undermines trust amongst people – and between groups that work together. It undermines the attitude that we all need to grow, improve, prosper and most importantly – SERVE. It undermines the meaning people find in their work. It undermines freedom – which is so essential for people to think abundant. With fear, people are instigated to do wrong, to fudge the details and to dispassionately comply. Does it help?

Here are a few most prominent thoughts about building a people-oriented work culture:

• Building culture is a choice – and that choice is driven by beliefs. If you strongly believe in people (and their goodness), that belief drives the choice of culture.
• Choice matters only when it is acted upon – do what you decide, in the way you treat people, design compensation/reward policies, do hiring, create environment and set up processes within your organization.
• Understand tradeoffs – when you choose to be people oriented, lot of people (factory-advocates) may suggest stringent processes to monitor people, control assets and increase their productivity. Take a call only after revisiting your belief system about people. Building a culture (like building anything) is a painful process that demands taking tough calls and understanding risks.
• Train People: Focus on your middle management and ensure that they completely understand the belief system and culture. Build processes so that new hires learn the culture, understand it and most importantly, FEEL it.

We are out of the factory mode where fear worked. No longer in knowledge world, where people have a choice between doing “good enough” and doing “great”, between ”simply cruising along” and “driving”. People choose to give their best (discretionary effort) only when they are free, when they are out of fear, when they are believed in and supported.

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P.S: My post Survival mindset, abundance and leadership was featured in The HR Carnival - Summertime Edition along with a host of other GREAT posts on people management, leadership and culture building. If you are a manager, leader or an HR professional - this Carnival will add a lot of value to what you do.