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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I wrote earlier about Nine I’s and Great Leadership. The post received a very good response (on twitter, in blogosphere and in comments) and that led me to further think about Nine I’s that leaders should be careful and conscious about. These are personal traits of a leader that have a direct impact on a team/organization’s performance. Here they go:
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Ignorance: A leader cannot afford to be ignorant. Lack of knowledge can be your biggest bottleneck. Leaders are expected to solve important problems for which sufficient knowledge is at the core.
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Inaction: This simply means ‘lack of action where some is expected or appropriate’. People expect leaders to take actions in the right direction. Actions that change people. Actions that have an impact.
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Ineffective: Leadership delivers performance. Results that matter. Ineffectual means ‘not producing any or the desired effect’. When leaders lack ability to cope with a role or situation, they become ineffectual.
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Inattentive: Leaders have to be mindful. Attentive to people. To details. To the upcoming trends. Being attentive also means that a leader listens actively. A leader who does not pay attention to things eventually becomes ineffectual.
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Incapable: Capability is as much about strength and power, as it is about qualification and capacity. A leader needs to have strong personal traits, strength to deal with difficulties and power to take right decisions.
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Impolite: Leaders, as they ascend in their positions, become more
polite and humble. It is said that
success should go to your heart and not head. When it goes into head, leaders become impolite and rude. Would you work with a rude leader?
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Inconclusive: When dealing with people and customers, leaders face many issues. The key is to resolve those issues conclusively. A leader has to be conclusive in thoughts, words and deeds. Inconclusive leader creates chaos.
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Inconsistent: Leaders who are inconsistent in their behavior, or who have self-contradictory elements, never generate trust. People look for continuity in character and integrity in actions.
Consistency is the key in building trust.
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Indifferent: With indifference, leaders cease to be leaders. They have no particular interest, concern or sympathy.
Indifference is the first step to mediocrity. Effective leaders are concerned, they
take work personally and really care about things.
Have a Wonderful Wednesday!
Tip: For a better understanding and correlation, read this post along with my earlier post Nine I’s and Great Leadership. As a further reference, you can also download 25 Things Managers and Leaders Should Never Do [PDF]
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Also: Thanks to Amit Agarwal (India’s first Professional Blogger at award winning Digital Inspiration blog) for listing QAspire Blog in Directory of Top Indian Blogs under ‘HR/Management/Business’ category.
Here is a simple idea: Whenever you have a new manager (project manager/departmental leader) joining in your organization, put him/her through a simple training program on how to manage people. Train existing managers as well.
The premise: Most project managers/team leaders get work done through team. I have also seen that a lot of people become managers because of their seniority in technical positions. But we know that managing people is far more than just technical skills. Most managers fail because they don’t know how people are managed.
Here are a few things (bare minimum) that MUST be included in the training:
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Leadership basics, traits and core expectations from a leader
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Setting a vision (for their projects/initiatives) and long-term thinking
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Fundamentals of dealing with people (and best practices therein)
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The art of effective delegation and empowerment
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Communication skills (oral and written), listening and non-verbal communication
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How to connect with people (team members, peers and clients)
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Leading with confidence
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Presentation skills
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Awareness about identifying and influencing impact of their actions on others
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How to coach and mentor people
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Kindness, care, humility and compassion at workplace
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A primer on vision and values of the organization and how it translates into real actions.
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Personal effectiveness and self-management
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Managing
conflicts and understanding differences in personality types
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Basic fact finding and interviewing skills
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Expectations Management at all levels
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(You can add more depending on your organization’s context)
Two critical points:
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Include a lot of real-life examples/stories for each of the above to make it interesting. To complement this effort, give them the URL’s of some of the
best leadership blogs out there. Share other useful resources like free presentations, eBooks, podcasts and videos that would help them get into a leadership mindset.
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To ensure that this training translates into meaningful actions, it is crucial to have a ‘leadership development program’ that continuously organizes trainings, inducts new people/aspiring leaders, conduct brainstorming and discussion sessions, seek feedbacks from people periodically to maintain the momentum and mature over a period of time.
I wrote in my book #QUALITYtweet that middle managers are the glue that joins the strategies at the top with actions at the bottom. Induction training like these are a small investment that go a long way in setting the precedence and ensuring that you find right channels to effectively transfer your strategy/values to all layers within the organization. It has a direct impact on overall employee morale’ and your effectiveness as an organization.
Have a Fantastic Friday!
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Download your copy of the 25 Things Managers and Leaders Should Never Do [PDF]. Read it, share it with your friends, or with anyone who is an aspiring leader.
Explore more articles tagged under “Leadership” at QAspire Blog.
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.
Friday again - time to share some of the most profound posts that I loved reading last week. These brilliant posts hit the point and leave us with some excellent lessons. A big high-five to these amazing folks.
- Six Thoughts About Middle Management - by Lisa Haneberg
Lisa says, “Management is a social act. Conversations are your currency to generate excellence and bring out the best in others. Erode relationships, erode results.”
- 10 Things: Addressed And Your Awesome Potential Will Be Unleashed- by NICHOLAS BATE
Professor Bate says, “Believe in Yourself. You don’t have to be liked by everybody to do great things, to live the Life you wish, to change the world. AGREE THAT WITH YOURSELF.”
- How to Discuss an Employee Performance Problem - by Dan McCarthy
Dan reminds us, “Knowing how to sit down with an employee and have an effective conversation about a performance problem is one of the hardest things for any manager to do, new or experienced, and should never be taken for granted.” He also offers practical tips to handle a performance problem.
- Three Years of CO - by Kurt Harden
Cultural Offering blog completed three years and Kurt ruminates on the journey so far. He says, “That is the deal that is blogging. You take a shot at it. Put some thoughts down. Words to sentences to paragraphs, all to hone your skills - writing, reading, thinking. Sometimes you hit and sometimes you miss. But over time there are more hits than misses.”
- The performance value of total concentration - by Tim Sanders
Tim Sanders posted a small and important reminder that working on one thing with total concentration has tremendous performance value. He also reminds that we can’t excel at all things at a time. Must read if you are struggling with your productivity.
Have a Fantastic Friday and a refreshing weekend!
Tags: Friday High-Five, Round Up
Career Related, Improvement & Development, Leadership, Managing Communication, Managing People, Managing Projects, Process Improvement, Quality, Random Musings | Tanmay August 20, 2010 | 
Comments (2)
It pains to see teams where people work on a common goal but don’t get along well with each other. We work in teams and knowing how to get along well with others is extremely crucial. So how do you get along well with others and establish required comfort? Here are 10 broad pointers that may help.
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Reiterate Objectives: They need to be communicated often to stay focused as a team.
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Don’t boast: People don’t get along well with someone who constantly boasts. Make sure that ‘keeping them informed’ doesn’t sound like boasting.
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Listen and be genuinely interested: You can either do transactional communication or seek to connect with people.
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Ask open ended questions: Open ended questions not only foster great discussions but also allows you to know the other person.
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Be firm and polite: In disagreements, be firm and polite. There will be situations when you have take a stand or suggest improvements. Do that with grace.
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Have fun: Be cheerful. Celebrate together. When working with the team, be cheerful and make things more interesting that way.
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Don’t talk small: You have a goal to achieve as a team. Don’t let that focus dilute with small talks and gossiping. It drains the energy! Beware!
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Motivate others: Motivate others to raise their game. Be generous when praising. Acknowledge that sincere effort. Say ‘Thanks’ often.
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Be the benchmark: People take more clues from your conduct, than from words. Make it a great conduct. Be the benchmark when it comes to quality of outcomes.
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Keep your promises: When you keep your promises, you demonstrate integrity and build lot of trust.
TEAM stands for “Together Everyone Achieves More” – but that is only possible when the team gets along well with each other. Understanding of these fundamentals goes a long way in building remarkable teams that deliver!
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Friday is a great day to share links to some of the best thinking out there. I am fortunate to a part of a wonderful leadership/management community who so generously share their ideas, insights and knowledge. So, here are 5 posts that I totally enjoyed reading in the last week, and I am sure you will enjoy them too.
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Lisa Haneberg (who also wrote an advance praise in my book #QUALITYtweet) thinks that PASSION at workplace can be fostered by addressing some of the key elements of our work. What are they? Check it out. A very useful post for HR folks, business leaders and managers.
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Have a Fantastic Friday and a refreshing weekend!
Photo Courtesy: Holtsman’s Flickr Stream
Last week, I had a short conversation with one of my colleagues in HR about the all important topic of employee engagement. In an impromptu conversation, we touched upon a very important point: People love (and remember) stories, not facts.
We loved it when our grandparents wrapped important life lessons in form of stories. Vivid situations weaved in words and narrated with great zeal. The stories I heard in my childhood, and the messages therein, are still afresh in my memory. My daughter almost gets hooked when a story is narrated. We grow up on stories, so do our belief system and our world view.
For leaders, ability to communicate using stories, choosing stories in line with listener’s current context and structuring them for maximum impact are very crucial skills.
Here are a few ways you can use power of storytelling:
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As a speaker/presenter, you can use stories to capture the imagination of audience. The lessons we learn as conclusions of interesting stories make a bigger impact than getting directly to the lessons. Great presenters tell great stories, anecdotes and experiences that truly engage the audience. They make a point at the end of each story.
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As a business leader, your biggest challenge is to keep your people engaged with your mission and with their work. Inspire them with stories about the organization. Show them the future. Tell tales of triumphs and trials, of success and failures, of past and future. Stories reinforce the belief system. Stories validate people’s aspirations and empower them. Stories create alignment and hence culture. Your people, new hires and aspiring leaders are not as fascinated by numbers as they are with the stories associated with the organization. Listen to their stories as well.
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As a sales leader, you can use power of well crafted stories to project your organization. Numbers and explicit details are fine, but stories of your inception, growth, challenges, success stories (in similar context) can help you a great deal in establishing comfort and confidence with your prospective customers.
Critical Question: How can you leverage the power of storytelling to enrich your conversations, build great relationships, truly connect with people and make a difference?
Have a FANTASTIC Friday and a great weekend ahead!
A few weeks back, my friend Becky Robinson at Mountain State University gifted me with a copy of John C. Maxwell’s latest book “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect”. The book, as the title suggests, is all about establishing meaningful connections to build great relationships at work and in personal life. The book introduction says,
“Connecting is the ability to identify with people and relate with them in a way that increases your influence with them. And the ability to communicate and connect with others is a major determining factor in reaching your potential. to be successful, you must work with others. To do that at your absolute best, you must learn to connect”
It was interesting to note the difference between “communication” and “connection”. I learned that communication is about content and connection is about relevance of that content and how it is received by others. Connecting with others is more than just transactional communication. It is about seeing others as human beings, understanding them, their energies and establish a deeper connection.
I have observed that all great “performers” are great connectors too. A singer has to understand the taste of audience and sing accordingly. A trainer has to connect with participants. An actor has to truly connect with the character being played. A blogger has to connect with the readers. An organization needs to connect with the customers.
Ability to build meaningful connections is the first step towards engaging others and building an influence. Connecting with others accelerates learning and spreads the ideas.
Maxwell’s book offers useful ideas for connecting with a group, connecting one-on-one and connecting with audience. The book does not offer any ground breaking ideas – we all know that we need to connect effectively. Still, the book does a GREAT job of outlining and reinforcing the fundamentals of connecting through explanations, stories and action points at the end of each chapter.
If you are a leader, an aspiring one or a professional who wants to make a big difference, this is a great book to pick up and read.
Have a GREAT week ahead!
As a business leader, if you think “costs” are only the ones where you spend real money, think again. Have you ever realized the costs of:
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having an inefficient leadership team?
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setting wrong examples?
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not treating people well?
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not aligning middle managers with vision at the top?
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long unnecessary meetings and deadlocked debates?
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efforts spent in resolving personal conflicts and protecting individual/departmental fortresses?
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poor communications and expectations management?
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not allowing people to make mistakes?
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loosing great ideas because of a “compliance” culture?
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acting from a reactive standpoint?
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not treating your customers well?
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not demonstrating integrity?
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ad-hoc-ism and lack of process orientation?
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not connecting with your people on one-to-one basis?
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inefficiencies structured within your org chart?
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treating people like machines (and expecting 100% productivity)?
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talking only from a “problem” perspective?
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re-hiring/training new hires when your experienced people leave?
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not training your workforce?
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taking “short-term” view of business?
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analysis-and-planning-paralysis?
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not challenging the status-quo?
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un-prioritized improvements and procrastination?
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not listening to customers and their unique context?
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not learning from your past mistakes?
These are costs too!
P.S.
