One of the most deadly points where failure in a team can take hold is in the feedback process. Successful leaders crave the data coming back from the field, as it provides not only real-time measurement of their progress but also a reality check on their strategy. But these leaders, being eternally optimists, also have the dangerous tendency to signal, often unconsciously, their dislike of bad news and their inner revulsion toward failure.
When that happens, especially when that leader hasn’t regularly established an absolute demand for accurate and objective data, subordinates will begin to shape and colour the data to meet the leader’s hopeful expectations, rather t han t he leader’s intellectual needs. When that happens, feedback data starts becoming corrupted and that in turn begins to undermine the overall strategy, until the likelihood of success itself begins to become a failure.
Effective feedback
“You’re cold! Now you’re getting warmer! You’re HOT!” Even children playing the popular ‘Hot or Cold’ game know t hat t o perform well (find t he hidden object) people need to be told how they’re doing. Without feedback, you’re walking blind. At best, you’ll accidentally reach your goal. At worst, you’ll wander aimlessly through the dark, never reaching your destination.
Effective and timely feedback is a critical component of a successful performance management programme and should be used i n conjunction with setting performance goals. If effective feedback is given to subordinates on their progress towards their goals, their performance will improve. They need to know in a timely manner how they’re doing, what’s working and what’s not.
Specificity
Feedback works best when it relates to a specific goal. Establishing subordinate performance expectations and goals before work begins is the key to providing tangible, objective and powerful feedback. Telling your subordinates that they are doing well because they exceeded their goal by 10 percent is more effective than simply saying “you’re doing a good job.”
Timeliness
Subordinates should receive information about how they’re doing as timely as possible. If improvement needs to be made in their performance, the sooner they find out about it the sooner they can correct the problem. If subordinates have reached or exceeded a goal, the sooner they receive positive feedback, the more rewarding it is to them.
Manner
Feedback should be given in a manner that will best help improve performance. Since subordinates respond better t o information presented in a positive way, your feedback should be expressed in a positive manner. This is not to say that information should be sugar-coated. It must be accurate, factual and complete. When presented, however, feedback is more effective when it reinforces what the subordinate did right and then identifies what needs t o be done i n t he future. Constant criticism eventually will fall upon deaf ears.
Some kinds of feedback occur naturally while other kinds must be carefully planned and well-managed. Naturallyoccurring feedback can be classified into two categories. The first type is self-evident feedback-information that subordinates can see for themselves as they do their work.
For instance, a team of material handlers who are given the assignment of moving 30 stacks of supplies from one side of the warehouse to the other in three days’ time will know that by the end of the first day if only eight stacks are moved, the assignment will not be completed on time. This information is self-evident and is obtained by the subordinates making their own comparisons against a specific goal.
Also falling into the first category of automatic feedback is feedback gained by having a broader scope of work. The broader the scope of work that a subordinate has, the better the subordinate can determine the quality of the finished product. For example, a writer/editor assigned to write a portion of an article may have been satisfied with the section he wrote. But if he’d been responsible for the entire article, he would have seen that his section had no relation to the rest of the article and had to be rewritten.
The second category of feedback is carefully planned feedback that is designed to be given often and automatically through a measurement system. Feedback can be designed into a work process or a measurement system so that it is received automatically by t he subordinate. For example, many work processes have been designed to provide performance measures daily, such as a production or printing process, i.e. so many copies printed per day as determined by machine count. Also, total quality and reengineering programmes use extensive work process measurement methods. Subordinates can measure for themselves how they and their team are doing.
If effective feedback is designed into a performance management programme, individual and team performance will i mprove, which will make your organisation more effective. With effective feedback processes, subordinates won’t be working blind and hopefully, will reach their destinations successfully.
On-going process
The performance feedback process is on-going between leaders and followers. The exchange of information involves both performance expected and performance achieved. Getting the facts, then having a face-to-face conversation can provide direction to help solve performance problems. Encourage your subordinates to talk to the management and report problems to resolve any issues. It is easier to motivate workers in an open culture of communication than if they are afraid to speak up.
Structure
Good performance feedback process is pro-active. Do not wait until a situation gets out of hand before intervening. Make sure subordinates know that you are watching and keep feedback frequent. Do not leave it at just glancing through; unless you are sure there are not any problems.
A responsible leader ought to be able to set up a mechanism and provide his followers with constructive assistance.
Confidentiality
The subordinates expect their leaders to keep information confidential. If you break that trust, it is difficult to build it back up and your subordinates will stop coming to you with problems. Avoid gossip or delegating and confront any issues yourself, directly with the subordinates involved. If you stand by your convictions and your team members know they can trust you, they will have more respect for you. For feedback to have a positive outcome, it should be specific rather than general. Generalizations might help you gather information about what the staff is feeling but it will not solve specific problems. It is important to focus on the behaviour instead of the person and make sure you give feedback geared to help and not hurt. You will need to limit the information you give to what your follower can hear and process. If you overload a person, they tend to block you out just to simplify things. Be aware of the effects of your feedback and follow up on the situation to see what changes have been made.
Key points
Feedback is a two-way street. You need to know how to receive it constructively and give it effectively. When you make a conscious choice to receive and give feedback on a regular basis you demonstrate that feedback is a powerful means of team development. Done properly, feedback need not be agonizing, demoralizing, or daunting and the more practice you get the better you will become at it. It may never be your favourite means of communicating with subordinates, co-workers, or bosses but it does have the potential to make your workplace a much more productive and harmonious place to be.
