Risk watch with Alberta QUARCOOPOME: Giving and receiving feedback: A powerful risk management tool (2)

“Learn from the negative as well as the positive, from the failures as well as the successes”. Jim Rohn

I am sure you find it strange that my risk management articles sometimes highlight the soft touch issues. Yes. It is a good risk management tool. Human beings are complex personalities, and a manager needs to use feedback to generate a high performing team, with communication skills at its highest. Taking smooth running teams for granted is a dangerously easy thing to do, especially when you’re undoubtedly busy with problems or challenges that require most of your energy and attention.  But, if you don’t take time out to give praise and encouragement, your team could soon be one of those problems or challenges!  So what do you do?

This week, I will concentrate on giving feedback. Well, you should take a few minutes out of every day to observe your team at work – you’ll soon be able to tell if they’re under pressure or in need of a boost.  Worried faces, unusual quiet, unexplained arguments and so on are all clues to a team’s stress levels.

Risk Management

A manager needs to regularly look at what the subordinates have achieved recently and what’s still to be done. If praise is due – give it! – there and then if possible.  Never let your team feel as if you take them for granted.  Put yourself in their shoes and treat them as you would wish to be treated yourself. It is good to give feedback on a risk management report. If the trend shows reduced risk incidents, appreciate them. If they have met targets, praise them. However, if the report shows an increasing trend of lower performance and negative variances, discuss with them and identify areas of improvement. It should not always be doom and gloom.

Motivational Feedback

If we can show people a picture of themselves as successful and competent, then they have a much greater chance of becoming successful and competent than if we confirm their present negative self-image.  Concentrate on the things they have done well, estimate their potential in that area, and then give feedback to them as if they have already achieved success.

• Build on their strengths

• Give them heart and courage; make them feel intelligent and powerful.

I am aware that some people find it difficult to praise sincerely. Note that people improve and grow most when they receive sincere feedback on what they do well, and are given constructive help to find ways of overcoming barriers to their effectiveness.

Questions to ask at Team Meetings

Whenever you are giving feedback to a group or to individuals, help them to think through these three questions:

1. What did you do well?

2. What could you have done even better?

3. What prevented you from doing even better; what’s the plan to do even better in the future?

Praise and encouragement is ‘soft management’ and will give cause for you to be respected. The fact is that appropriate and well-timed praise and encouragement will only increase your team’s respect for your management skills because you’ve recognized their achievements and taken time to show your sincere appreciation of their efforts.

People are paid to do a job – why praise them?

Someone may exclaim: “I’m not giving my team praise – they’ll think they can take it easy for the next two weeks.  Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile!”  Don’t worry, just try it and see and remember:

• Giving feedback is about providing plenty of reassurance and appropriate praise.

• Take care not to demotivate people or revert to simply telling them how to do things.

• Put yourself in their shoes and try to appreciate what they might be feeling and the difficulties they may be having.

• Once they are armed with feedback, you may very well want them to have another go.

A manager is a solution provider and the facts behind the numbers really manner. Talking down on your team will make them cringe, be silent and not make recommendations and they will leave the job for you. Without everyone’s efforts, the team suffers. The “heat map” of a risk management report which indicates either red, orange or green always speak of a team’s overall performance. The red zones which highlight danger or poor performance is a dread to all managers of risk. Now let’s look at another type of feedback.

Developmental Feedback

For many people the thought of giving developmental feedback is not a very pleasant one. Many managers dislike giving developmental feedback because:

• it is often seen in a negative light as being the same as giving criticism or laying blame.

• individuals might become upset or angry.

• the feedback could damage their relationship with the individual.

• they lack confidence in their ability to find solutions to performance problems.

Developmental feedback has nothing to do with laying blame but is instead about recognizing issues which are preventing an individual from achieving their potential and coming up with solutions to address those issues effectively.

Developmental feedback is an opportunity to help an individual to improve not to destroy them with a barrage of criticism.

Timely Feedback

To be effective, feedback must be given at the appropriate time. It’s of no value to give somebody tips or advice on a new project, after they’ve been struggling vainly with it for months, or to make someone aware of their negative effect on the team when the damage to team morale has become irreparable.

So don’t save up your comments for a performance review meeting.  If you notice a team member doing something particularly well, reinforce that behaviour by praising it right away.  If you foresee difficulties in implementing a new directive, tell your manager and discuss the implications.  Don’t wait for the problems to develop.

Constructive Feedback

For feedback to achieve its purpose, it must be given and received in a spirit of co-operation.  It is all too easy to demotivate someone by unintentionally giving feedback which is perceived as destructive.

Lets look at this statement from a manager to a subordinate: “You never submit your returns on time, Michael.  I’m telling you, this is what you need to do …”

Manager has just succeeded in undermining any confidence Michael might have had.  That wasn’t his intention; he wanted to improve Michael’s performance.  By dismissing Michael’s ideas and imposing his own he has made Michael feel that his ideas are worthless.  Michael may resent this, he may even feel hostile towards his manager; he certainly won’t be in a hurry to approach him with a problem again, and who can blame him?!

Let’s try this Managers, : “I can give you one or two ideas that might work.  Perhaps you can try them in next week’s presentation and let me know whether they help”.

Let us highlight the traits of developmental feedback:

• is friendly and supportive

• talks about your strengths before looking at your development needs

• is specific

• balances the things you have done well and the things you need to improve

• encourages you to come up with your own solutions

• offers suggestions to improve your performance

• uses positive language

• is sincere

• is given privately

• focuses on behaviours

• focuses on solutions

Now lets look at some negative feedback examples.

Destructive Feedback

Destructive feedback however is damaging to subordinates and is sometimes judgemental. Here are some traits:

• tells you abruptly what you are doing wrong

• tells you about things that you can’t put right

• says you’re ‘doing OK’ – this is is non-committal/lukewarm

• focuses on the negative

• preaches – using ‘should’, ‘ought’, etc.

• tells you exactly what to do

• gives you no reason or information

• tells you nothing at all

• uses sarcasm

• is given publicly

• focuses on personality

• imparts blame

Dear managers, do you know that when you ‘put your ears on the ground’ you can even identify red flags in your team’s activities. When you use developmental and motivational feedback, your team members can confide in you and make you open your eyes on areas you may be overlooking which can expose your branch or department to possible operational losses, lifestyle of some staff who are living above their means, lackadaisical attitude of some members, in your absence.

Never take giving feedback for granted. Next week, I will look at receiving feedback, also as a risk management tool.

…to be continued