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 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 specifically did, we’re now interacting with them through what we made that behaviour mean about them- and that is all about US! i.e.. ‘She’s lazy’ – No, she just didn’t complete the task you asked her to do. Let’s find out why.

Or ‘She thinks she can do whatever she wants’. No, she didn’t follow a specific request you asked of her. Have you asked her why?

Now, if someone was speaking to you as if you were lazy and you certainly didn’t consider yourself to be, you’d get upset, wouldn’t you? Of course you would, and so will they!

The quality of your relationship with them influences how they respond. It’s all about TRUST! If I generally feel valued and appreciated by you, you’ve encouraged me consistently over time, and I like working for you, when you give me corrective feedback, I’m likely to listen, and take it on board.

But if our relationship is strained, and I don’t feel valued, appreciated, or encouraged by you, there’s a higher chance that I’ll suspect an ulterior motive, disregard your feedback and react emotionally to protect myself.

The Emotional Bank Account: We have a relationship with each person on our team that has similarities to a bank account. We make deposits in that account when we say things like ‘Thank You’, ‘Well Done!’, “You’ve worked back a few days this week, I’ve crossed you out from 3pm on Friday so you can go home early” or even just when we make time regularly for them to talk, review their progress and give them guidance and encouragement, because it shows them that they’re important to us and that we care.

But we also need to make withdrawals from time to time with things like:

- “I need to change your RDO in 2 weeks’ time when Sally is on holidays”,

- “I’m sorry, but I can’t approve 2 weeks holiday over Christmas for you”,

- “To help Treena transition onto the floor, I need you to start moving your basic colour work to her column. We gave you the opportunity to grow when you were at her stage, now It’s your turn to give back. That basic work belongs to our emerging stylists”

To be able to make (inevitable) withdrawals, from time to time, your account needs to be kept in credit – otherwise, you might find yourself with a resignation which indicates that your account is well and truly overdrawn!

Making the effort to make regular deposits in each team member’s emotional bank account and keep a healthy credit means that when you do need to have a more serious conversation, there’s more acceptance and trust to soften it and the relationship isn’t damaged.

Close the Gap:

In essence, giving feedback just means that there’s a GAP between how something should look and how it does look, and your role is to close that gap

Make it CLEAR, then make it HAPPEN!

Any feedback or coaching is much easier when you have a clear expectation in place, so that’s where we need to start. We cannot expect our staff to do anything that we have not:

i. clearly explained for them,

ii. checked their understanding of and

iii. gained their commitment to.

No ‘assuming’ they should just know or that it’s just common sense! That’s just poor leadership.

Once you have clear expectations in place, you’re continually bringing them back in line with those expectations- a course correction- to help them succeed.

“Hey Sally, remember when we you first started and we had that conversation about how important it was to do ABC? And do you remember when you gave me your word that I could rely on you to do that? Well today, I saw that you did XYZ… and that’s not what we agreed.

Is there a reason why you did/didn’t do that? So, let’s get clear on that again. what I need you to do, every client from now on is ABC. Now, just so I know you’ve understood that clearly, explain back to me what you’re going to do……..

Great, I can see that you understand. So, can I rely on you to do that, every client, every time? Do I have your word? Great!”

A few final points to get it right.

EARLY: Speak to them as soon as possible after the incident or problem.

- Don’t put it off and expect to speak to them a week later

- You’re never too busy. These conversations are a top priority

- Don’t ‘bank’ feedback and ambush them with a list of issues weeks or months later!

PRIVATE: Any corrective feedback is a one-on-one conversation. No general references in a team meeting, hoping they pick up on your hint!

- And definitely. no personal criticism in public!

SPECIFIC: Focus on the specific behaviour, Not the person.

✘ NOT: “You always... “ or “you never...”

✔︎ When you did/said XYZ this morning...”

Just like the sculpture that is brought to life from a piece of stone by smoothing away the rough edges, your staff come to you with promising raw ingredients, but they’ll need your guidance to achieve their potential. Your skill is in ‘polishing’ the stone to reveal the gem inside.

Kym Krey is a veteran, highly trusted salon industry business coach and leadership mentor. She’s the expert you’ll want in your corner when you’re ready to turn your business around or take that next big leap. Get in touch @kymkrey or www.kymkrey.com.au