This week I've had several interesting meetings and somehow the week's meetings often have a theme of what I pick up when I leave. This week's theme has been giving feedback and the challenge that many leaders have in giving just that.
We know that employees generally lack feedback from their manager. We also know that leaders think is most important in their leadership is feedback. There is fantastic research, done by Simon Elvnäs at KTH, which shows that managers think they spend about 40% of their time on feedback, but in fact it is only 2%.
What I perceive is that many times people are afraid to give feedback and to expressing themselves wrongly. It's easy to throw out a "Good job" in a hurry in the corridor, but the constructive and well-founded feedback is more difficult. The reasons for this are, of course, several. We humans are generally afraid of making mistakes. If the feedback is deeper, or not just positive, we may prefer to avoid it and think we'll take it later.
In addition, when we have teams working remotely, the opportunity to give feedback in the corridor or at the coffee machine has often disappeared. We also don't see what's happening in the day-to-day work in the same way. So we have nothing to feed back on except the end result - and by then it may already be too late. And the employee's need for feedback doesn't just disappear because of that.
I think as a leader you have to start challenging yourself. Challenge yourself to give constructively, informed feedback that focuses predominantly on what's good. Giving feedback is also not something that can only be done once a year, during the annual staff meeting. For feedback to be meaningful, there should not be too much time between the feedback itself and the thing on which the employee is to receive feedback.
For feedback to have extra meaning, it should be linked to the effort that the employee puts into his/her daily work to achieve his/her goals. After all, results are the result of effort. Show that you appreciate that effort! Let your employees tell you what they have focused on, how they have experienced it, what has been challenging and then give them feedback on just that.
If it is difficult: ask questions like "how did you feel?" and "could you have done something differently?" If you still find it difficult: be human. But make sure you set the stage and challenge yourself to actually do it.
It will pay off, I promise.
Pia Nilsson,
CEO
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Would you like more support in giving feedback? Get in touch and we'll have a chat - I've got lots of great thoughts and ideas. Another tip is to check out this lecture by Simon Elvnäs.