On Receiving Feedback
A lot has been said, by me in this blog, and by many others, about giving feedback, but there is precious little on the subject of receiving feedback. I would submit that to earn the right to give feedback to others, one must invite and pay attention to feedback from superiors, peers and employees.
The key about inviting feedback is to invariably say “thank you” for any that comes your way. Thank you and nothing else. Then you have to actually consider all feedback as important information asking yourself “what if this were true?” Even if you don’t respect the source, even if you don’t understand the feedback, even if you think the feedback can’t possibly pertain to you.
“What if this were true?” What would I need to think about? What might I have to change? How would I need to think about myself differently?
More on this next post.
Guidelines for Giving Feedback
Things to keep in mind when using the coach approach to giving feedback.
- Before giving feedback, be sure there were clear agreements about goals, norms, roles and expectations.
- Establish that the relationship has sufficient trust. Ask for permission to give feedback or at least prepare the team member that you need to share something that might be delicate or hard to hear.
- Use a neutral demeanor – eliminate blame and judgment. Be aware of non verbals and tone. Practice using neutral language if this is a challenge.
- Be timely – give feedback immediately or as quickly as possible (but not in the heat of the moment. If you cannot control your emotions, wait until you can before giving feedback).
- Be relevant – feedback needs to be focused on moving forward, not about something in past that will never happen again. Giving feedback about past events which are likely to re-occur serves no purpose and can damage the trust.
- Focus on behaviors that are within person’s control – beating people up for things outside of their control is unreasonable
- Be specific and descriptive – describe the behaviors or data rather than giving generalizations. Do not drag in third party observations and do not give into demands for ‘what other people think’. Remember you are the manager, and what matters is what you think.
- Be open and ready for a variety of outcomes – if you are just giving feedback to be helpful, don’t expect gratitude or enthusiasm. If there is a request, hopefully, the feedback will be received and acted upon. If so, pay attention to efforts and be ready to endorse and praise. If there is a demand/requirement be ready to work with the person to assure compliance. Discuss structure (when, how they will do what is needed), accountability (how will you and others know they are on track) and support (how can you and others help?). Finally be ready to follow up with consequences for failure.
All Feedback material from Homan/Miller
Not All Feedback is Equal – Types of Feedback
When a manager decides to use ‘a coach approach’ it is important to remember that employees, especially in more traditional corporate or national cultures, are used to hearing a suggestion or request as an order . You need to ascertain your intention before speaking up.
If you are you giving feedback to influence specific results, you can just keep your manager hat on and proceed with business as usual. If your feedback is intended to enhance the employee’s development, you can put on your ‘coach hat’. Be clear with yourself and your employee, you will avoid all kinds of confusion.
[For more detail on the distinction between Manager and Coach see Coaching in Organizations by Homan and Miller, Wiley 2008]
1. Informative feedback – information for the person’s awareness and/or growth, but not mandatory. The manager coach can ask for permission to share this kind of feedback and should expect no specific outcome from sharing this.
Example: “You might make more of an impact if you used your voice more powerfully in your presentations.”
2. Feedback that includes a request – information that would benefit the person, but is not a demand. The manager coach can give feedback and make a request that is clearly a suggestion and negotiable.
Example: “You might make more of an impact if you use your voice more powerfully – would you be willing to practice with me before the next presentation to the committee?”
3. Feedback that addresses a requirement/demand – sharing information about something that is considered part of the job and needs immediate attention.
Example: “The presentation to the board has to be flawless. Your presentation is not quite as powerful as it needs to be. You need coaching and practice, lets figure out how to make it happen right away.”
Next post: Guidelines for giving feedback.
Note: All feedback material originally created with Linda J. Miller
The Coach Approach to Feedback (1)
Previous discussion leads us to the most pressing need, the manager’s nemesis: giving feedback. When we teach our coaching skills program our participants are most challenged by one management duty that many think of as a coaching skill: giving feedback. Why is giving feedback so challenging?
As managers:
- We are afraid we will de-motivate people on whom we are depending for results
- We are worried we will offend and damage the relationship
- We are worried that the feedback will not generate the results we are looking for.
The coach approach can help. It is crucial to remember that as manager coaches we are always keeping the development of our people and the best case results in mind at the same time.
The manager who has committed to the coach approach will have already made a couple of important shifts:
The Manager Coach is:
- Aware of style differences and chooses the best language when speaking with team members
- Clear about their own judgments and can keep these separate from the job requirements and best interests of the team member
- Always working to increase trust in the relationship.
So when the time comes to share delicate or difficult feedback, the manager coach has already built awareness, trust and respect into the relationship.
Good coaching depends on distinctions and one crucial distinction when giving feedback is to separate a direction, e.g.: ‘you must do this instead of that’ from information that you think might be helpful to a direct report in general. Managers will admit that being clear about requirements and directives is part of the job – often the need to calmly point out a gap between clearly expressed expectations and results that fall short is confused with the need to give feedback.
Next post: Types of Feedback
[All posts on Coach Approach to Feedback co-created with Linda Miller]
Feedback – Gutting it Out
So, the thinking about 360° Feedback was actually prompted by an experience I had recently. It illustrates both the upside and the dark side of this trend in ‘anonymous’ feedback.
A colleague at my company, whom I consider to be a real friend, recently included me as a rater in a Leadership 360° Feedback experience that she initiated for herself. I do not work closely with this individual everyday but we are on a committee together and she has been incredibly helpful to me over the years in varied ways. I consider her to be an expert in her field and have nothing but fondness and respect for her.
I cheerfully filled out the multiple choice type questions rating her highest or very high in most dimensions, though on some, I had to say I had no experience. And then I got to the open ended comments. The instruments asked about strengths and I a rattled off a whole bunch of positive comments. And then I got to the section asking “how might this person improve?” And I was stumped. I thought the least I could do was offer something constructive and useful. And then it hit me. I had totally forgotten that about 6 months before, in a hideous meeting, my friend had really hurt my feelings with a few comments – feedback of her own to me about some work I had done. I had called in to the meeting, having been out of town for a few months, working virtually and it was an extremely busy time– by the time I got back to the office I had blanked out the whole event.
Now her comments to me were dead on – completely accurate. It was the way they were delivered that was hard to take. But I had never told her, and then I had forgotten all about it. And it would have stayed forgotten if she hadn’t asked for feedback. But she did. So I remembered. And I couldn’t see how writing about it ‘anonymously’ (ha ha, she would have immediately known it was me) was going to serve anyone. So I did a very hard thing. I picked up the phone and called her.
“There is something I need to talk to you about” I said, and then I spilled my guts. My friend was astonished, and appalled. Of course, hurting my feelings was the farthest thing from her intention. She was, of course, focused on clarity and getting the point across. I have never experienced any one taking feedback so gracefully. We both fell over ourselves in our efforts to express our esteem for the other, and it all turned out ok.
But it got me thinking – what if our relationship wasn’t so great? What if we didn’t have the mutual commitment to be ‘straight’ with each other? What if I hadn’t had it in me to screw up my courage and take the plunge? What if she weren’t such a fine human being and had gotten upset with me and I had damaged the relationship?
Hmmm.
No, Seriously, What Do You Really Think?
Ah, the joys of 360° Degree Feedback. Don’t you love it? Ken Blanchard says that “Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions” but who said that 47 page report of it was the way to go? I, for one, am not convinced.
For the uninitiated: 360° Degree Feedback is a fairly recent process in global corporate environments designed to elicit input on the effectiveness of an individual by collecting feedback from the boss, direct reports, clients if applicable and peers. Although the practice has been around for quite a long time, it wasn’t until the advent of internet with its ease of communication and computerized scoring/reporting that it got completely out of hand.
As a coaching organization we are often asked to provide or recommend a reputable management / leadership practices 360. Or we are asked to provide coaches who are ‘certified’ to work with specific instruments. There is no question that there a science and an art to interpreting any 360° feedback report. I feel sorry for any individual faced with translating their own into a full development plan with milestones and actions with no help.
So help we do, thank goodness.
Some cool things that can come from a 360:
- An excellent, research based instrument is built to assess use of tried and tested management and leadership practices. At the very least, everyone who fills out a 360 on someone else, or on themselves gains a clear, concise picture of what the best managers and leaders should be measured on. I had one client literally point to a behavior in his report on which he received a score of ‘never demonstrates’ and remarked: “It has not once in my life occurred to me that anyone would expect me to do that. This is a real wake up call.” Now, there is some real value in that.
- For the truly clueless, it may be the first time that anyone has pointed out to them that how they interact with other people in the organization is important. You accuse me of exaggeration, but those of you who work with one know exactly what I mean.
Some misgivings:
- Raters (people we are asking to go online with their login and password and take 25 minutes of focused work time to provide thoughtful well considered feedback– and you have to be online, you can’t do it on a plane) are demonstrating severe “360 fatigue”. It takes a lot of thought to fill these things out. If someone has a tummy ache, has way too much to do or is just having a really bad day, it can do all kinds of crazy things to the data.
- The 360 instrument holds the promise of anonymity – this is supposed to encourage honesty. But who are we kidding? In 10 years of working with 360’s I have never, ever had a client say “wow, I haven’t the vaguest idea who might think that about me”. If we want to foster a culture of clear, honest and timely feedback in an organization, why on earth would we want to hide behind a hollow promise of anonymity?
More on this and then on Feedback in general in future posts. Debate and comments encouraged.
Have It Your Way
A frequent topic of discussion for us on the Blanchard Coaching Services team has been around the amount of flexibility we afford to our clients when designing their coaching program. That is, to what degree do we allow them to influence our coaching delivery model to meet their needs while maintaining the integrity of the best practices that have proven to be the most effective?
Almost all of our clients have time and budget constraints that need to be considered and respected when designing a coaching solution. The goal is to balance all potentially competing factors to meet the needs of the budget, the sponsor, and the individual receiving coaching. We have learned through years of experience that when not designed and delivered properly, the client’s coaching experience will not have the level of impact we have become accustomed to.
This led me to question the appropriate time to push back and establish ourselves as the expert that can lead the client to their desired results if, and only if, they follow the tried and tested best practices. For example, let’s say I hire a certified dietician to create a healthy eating plan for me but then explained to the dietician that I was unwilling to eliminate cakes, pies, cookies, pizza, fried chicken, double cheeseburgers, and carne asada burritos from my diet. As the client, I would expect a respected dietician to tell me to save my money and come back when I’m serious. If the dietician told me they could work around my unhealthy eating habits, I would question their credibility as an “expert.” If I am serious enough about eating healthy that I am willing to spend the money on an expert in the field, I should also be disciplined enough to follow the expert’s advice. Furthermore, if I was the dietician, I wouldn’t want to jeopardize my reputation as an expert, or waste my time and my client’s time and money, when they are obviously not serious about improving themselves.
So for all you coaches out there, the next time your prospective client tells you that they only have 30 minutes to spare once every six months, what will your response be? Please share your thoughts and experiences on this subject in the comment area below.
How Do You Feel About That?
One of our best coaches did a coach development call with me today. In these sessions we have our coaches coach us and give them feedback. Coaches rarely get specific or honest feedback so they consider it a gift (it is optional and they sign up). At the end of today’s call my ‘coach’ asked me how something felt.
I had to laugh, because one of the hallmarks of my personality type (ISTP) and something I have learned quite late in life is that at any given moment I generally have no idea how or what I am feeling. I have actually learned to not act on my emotions until I can figure out what the heck they are. OK – most of the time – when my kids were little I would give myself ‘time-outs’ so I wouldn’t behave in ways that were confusing to all of us. So for me the question is not useful or relevant unless I am devoting a coaching session to understand my feelings, which is rare, as I have other forums for those conversations.
This seems to be true for most of my clients too – CEO’s, CFO’s, scientists, engineers do not respond favorably when asked how they are feeling. They are much more interested in and comfortable with a conversation about what they are thinking. If they are actually feeling something that provides them with new information they will always volunteer it. Or if I sense there is something going on with them that they haven’t quite pin- pointed that might provide some insight I’ll ask “What is going on for you right now?” It is just that asking straight out never seems to get to the desired result.
As a big fan of therapy and a veteran of the Jungian type, I hate to say it, but the popularization of “how do you feel about that?” or “how does that make you feel?” has kind of turned it into a bit of a joke that coaches can’t afford to use.
Very interested in opinions about this.
Active Listening
It came to my attention yesterday in a client meeting that not everybody has heard of active listening. Because in my business it is practically as basic as the alphabet, I forget that it isn’t common knowledge. So this blog post is for those of you who didn’t get the memo.
What is Active Listening: A way of listening that leaves the speaker feeling heard to his/her satisfaction.
Listen by:
- Paying attention to nonverbal cues, such as tone of voice or emotion
- Suspending judgment or personal beliefs and opinions
- Using engaged gestures or occasional casual phrases (I see, mmm, right, uh-huh)
- Maintaining eye contact
- Waiting until l the person appears to be finished before responding (don’t jump in just because they pause for breath, or to think).
Respond by:
- Asking clarifying questions to explore meaning and expand understanding
- Can you expand on that?
- What happened exactly?
- Paraphrasing what the person has said to acknowledge and conform what you have heard
- So what I think you said was…
- It sounds like…
- Verifying observations or intuition to ascertain underlying context
- Seems like…
- I sense there might be more…
- Sharing your own related experience – if invited – and then briefly, to demonstrate grasp of point of view or experience.
Practice with your significant other tonight!
This or Something Better
It’s back to the discussion about Angeles Arrien’s work – one last piece on it, after a hiatus for end of the decade thoughts. BUT the fourth step in the pattern of behavior found in leaders and change agents across cultures (The Four Fold Way; Angeles Arrien; Harper Collins, 1993) is extremely relevant to beginning of the year thinking.
The fourth step of the Four-fold Way is to “Be open, not attached to outcome”. How does this jibe with all of the advice we hear about setting SMART goals, setting up accountability and support and then applying fierce discipline to achieve the ends in mind?
It actually jibes pretty well in action. This is what I have observed about goal setting with clients for over 20 years. We set our goals, we make them specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable and time bound. We break down all the actions needed into big milestones and smaller action steps and then we fling ourselves at it.
And then we go, go, go. And grit our teeth and thrash around when things don’t go the way we want.
And then what happens? Well, some people describe it as God laughing. And sometimes it does feel as if a great spirit somewhere is mocking us. But what really happens is that we get information. Data. That informs us of what is real somewhere on the continuum between “STOP YOU IDIOT THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA” and “YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS; THIS IS YOUR DESTINY”.
This is what is meant by being open to outcome – you can decide what you want to create, but nothing is going to work properly if your desire is out of alignment with what God, or fate or the universe or whatever you call it has in mind for you. So you have to listen and look for signs. They are always there. Then you have to decide – is this a test to see how much I want it? Is the cost to high? Is this the right thing? (More on this later)
An old friend and colleague Cheryl Richardson had a wonderful way to stay open to outcome and signal to the ‘universe’ just how willing she was to listen. She would set her goal, and state it proudly. And then she would add: “this or something better.”
Isn’t that grand?
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