Giving Feedback: The Art of Influencing Performance By Kym Krey
For anyone who employs or manages staff, the ability to give feedback well is an essential part of your role, but it’s something that so many leaders fear, avoid or do very poorly!
When done well, these conversations become the tool you use to support your team to success, but if not done well, they can be unpleasant for all involved. So, let’s get clear on a few important points: 1. What feedback is NOT: • ‘Taking them down a peg or two’ • Venting to let off steam • Showing your anger or frustration. Each of these comes from a less than positive intention going in… and you can bet that’s going to be felt by the other person and prompt a defensive reaction! If you’ve carefully chosen the right people who align with your values and are a good culture fit, they will typically want to do a good job, so feedback should become the mirror that reflects back to them information that they haven’t seen/realised to help them self-correct. It shows them how they’re doing compared to how they should be doing and therefore 104
Hair Biz Year 17 Issue 6
where they’re off track and what they might do differently to resolve that issue. Yes, if they do not actively choose to correct their actions, of course, further conversations are in order but it’s important to accept that the majority of your staff do not intentionally try to annoy you! If they’re off track, they’re missing an important piece of the puzzle and your role is to provide that for them… It will help them WIN! With this approach, your intention for this chat should be more like: • “Let me help you nail this!” • “Let’s see what we can do to get this right” • “Let’s see if I can help you to understand this differently” • “Help me understand how this looks from your eyes” Your intention matters! Should you find yourself in a situation where you’re ‘thrown’ off guard because something unexpected was said or done, your intention tends to come out of your mouth and you end up saying things you regret, so make sure
your intention is clean, clear an positive going in! Never go into a feedback conversation angry, irritated, or annoyed. Let that settle and clear before you speak to your team member, so you can sit down with them in a calm frame of mind. You are their guide and they are lost or offcourse; of course your role is to help and guide them to where they need to be. Don’t Resort To ‘Labels’: What’s a label? We ‘label’ people when we observe a behaviour and then create a story around it. When we lose sight of the specific issue that we have observed and make it personal about them. E.g.: - “They’re just lazy” - “They never listen” - “He’s so entitled. He just does whatever he wants anyway” Once we do this, we’re no longer acting rationally and managing whatever they
