Performance Management (Feedback)
Introduction
"...feedback is part of everyday existence. It is widely viewed as crucial to improving our performance at work, in education and the quality of our relationships. Most white-collar professionals partake in some form of annual appraisal, performance development review or 360-degree feedback; the last one is where peers, subordinates and managers submit praise and criticism..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
Performance management is big business with the global software market worth around $US 1.4 b in 2020.
We have an optimistic misperception of feedback:
"...we imagine the kind of insights a good therapist might offer, gentle but piercing appraisal of our strengths and weaknesses, precious gems of knowledge sharp enough to cut through self-delusion and insecurities. On a deeper level, many of us crave the thrill of being known, of being truly understood..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
What happens is different
"...We overestimate the capacity of our colleagues to calibrate their comments to our individual emotional states. We underestimate how bruising it is to hear that we are not meeting expectations, even when the issues are minor. And we can be surprised with critiques that do not line up with our own sense of who we are..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
Best to use open-ended questions that cannot be answered with a yes or a no, ie
- What can I do, or stop doing, to make it easier to work with me?
- Can you tell me what I am doing wrong?
An important part of feedback is listing with intent to understand, not to respond, ie listen first, and respond later.
Additionally, you need to observe your emotions with curiosity, eg
"...Part of what helps is to identify the feeling in your body. Shame, for me, the tingling feeling in the back of my knees, kind of the same feeling I get if I walk to the edge of a precipice......when I recognise I'm having that feeling, then I take a step back and take a few breaths..."
Kim Scott as quoted by Esther Bintliff, 2022
What type of response you have to feedback is driven by the nature of your relationship with that person giving it, ie if you respect the giver of the feedback, you are more likely to respond positively to their comments.
Negative feedback
Negative feedback can have 1 of 3 reactions, ie
"...the first one......is 'F--- you', the second is 'I suck', and the third is 'let's make it better'..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
Your personality can help determine your reaction, ie if you are self-centred person who is confident of your ability, your response is likely to be the first one. Many people get stuck on the second response, ie 'what's wrong with me'.
However, reaction 3 is the only productive one; ie you can start to have a conversation explaining how you disagree; a respectful disagreement can strengthen relationship.
Need to be careful that feedback, especially critical and/or negative, can be a demotivator, ie
"...fearful, aggrieved people are less able to focus on the task at hand and are more likely to doubt themselves, resent their boss and possibly attempt armchair psychoanalysis..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
Being informed that you have a bad attitude can be particularly destructive. An example of this is 'ego-involving feedback', ie
"...Which prompts the listener to believe they can't change, and that failure is intrinsic in who they are..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
If feedback is 'obnoxiously aggressive', it is time to move on from the organisation.
NB Even positive feedback can back-fire
Blind spots
If you are unskilled in a particular field, you are more likely to overrate your ability in that area. This incompetence makes it harder for you to understand how bad you are. This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect and is a good reason feedback is important.
Furthermore,
"...There is nothing kind in keeping quiet about colleagues' weaknesses..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
This has been called ruinous empathy
Some other relevant, 2-word phrases:
"...While aiming to achieve 'radical candour', you need to avoid 'manipulative insincerity' and 'obnoxious aggression'. the key to giving feedback...... is to 'care personally' while 'challenging directly'..."
Kim Scott as quoted by Esther Bintliff, 2022
Manager's dilemma
They need to have feedback from their staff but have a challenge, ie
"...how to persuade employees to be honest with them despite their authority and the nervousness it can create..."
Esther Bintliff, 2022
Some flaws in traditional performance reviews
- subjective bias (one person has been measured by another, ie their opinion)
- negative focus (most comments are on weaknesses, discrepancies, etc that are undermining the positive qualities, strengths, etc)
- insufficient training (most participants have little or no training around giving feedback and making it constructive)
- defensiveness (most people become defensive when receiving negative feedback rather than being open to change, ie
i) they become critical of the feedback giver, or
ii) they discredit the criteria used as a basis for review, or
iii) leave the organisation, etc).
NB They can feel as though like they will never be good enough.
- low morale (negative feedback can dampen overall morale of the workplace)
- positive paradox (
"...positive feedback, also doesn't improve motivation, as employees who were continuously assessed as good performers are more likely to stay at that level of performance instead of striving for even better results..."
Walkme Team, 2017).
Ways to improve giving feedback:
- use critical thinking techniques
- be a good listener
- be open about your own failures
- change the name of feedback to intellectual candour
- realise your own biases (conscious and unconscious), hidden assumptions, principal suppositions, etc
- usually the receiver of the feedback is familiar with the comments, ie knows there is a problem, but they don't know how to change
NB There are many variables that can influence feedback, including
- personality of the recipient and giver
- their motivation
- whether they believe they are capable of meeting the change
- the abilities of the manager, etc.
An alternative is Feed-forward interview (for more detail, see elsewhere in the Knowledge Base); this builds on the positive side of life, ie an exhilarating experience.
Another alternative is
"...I get my team to send me a weekly summary in three sections: key achievements of the week, key things that they worried about, and anything else on their minds that they want me to be aware of..."
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin as quoted by Sally Patten, 2022c.