Being able to give feedback in a way that reaps results is a soft skill that really matters.

Every organisation ideally wants its people to love coming to work every day, to love what they do with and for the organisation.

This happens when people feel valued and appreciated by their organisation, when they know they are making a difference to its work.

How would they know that? They know because their managers give them feedback that affirms their contribution,  that encourages them to improve and enhance their area of expertise and supports them in doing so.

Some Starting Points For Managers.

1.     Make the feedback specific, otherwise it is just affirmation. Be clear about the difference between “Affirmation” and “Feedback”.

       Affirmations are comments like:

      - Well done!

      - Great job!

      - Excellent contribution from you all!

Affirmations are about appreciating, recognising, acknowledging. They are very important, but are general.

Feedback is more than affirmation. You add something to the affirmation that lets employees know exactly what you are pleased/happy about. In other words the feedback is much more precise. It can also challenge or motivate the employee to want to give more, or enhance and develop skills further.

Example:

Say someone has written a report for you and sent it to you to review. Instead of just writing on it and putting it back in his/her pigeon hole, phone them or physically go and see them and tell them that it was excellent. Give reasons why it was excellent. Acknowledge the fact that they got it done in record time – they over-delivered in other words. Offer a challenge. “I’d like you to consider becoming part of the project team implementing this.” This is further acknowledgement and feedback.

2.     Give feedback frequently and consistently. Make it an observable part of your management style.

Don’t leave giving feedback to the once a year performance appraisal time. People feel very betrayed when this happens, that they weren’t given an opportunity to improve their performance and were working along believing that they were doing what was required. This creates a big breach of trust. There should be nothing new come up in a performance appraisal. It is just a summary of the person’s performance over the year and a planning for the next year.

3.     Give feedback in a variety of ways – directly and indirectly, verbally and non-verbally, publicly and privately, formally and informally, brief and longer. Surprise your people.

      - hand written note,

            - special visit to their office,

            - email,

            - in organisation's newsletter,

            - on notice board,

            - weekly staff memo,

            - employee of the month awards,

            - publicly acknowledging it at a team meeting,

            - rewards- gifts, flexible work arrangements, days off, for example,

            - remuneration – promotions, salary increases, bonuses.

When bonuses are given in a separate cheque with an accompanying letter or card that clearly states that it is for work well done, it will be seen as the kind of “feedback” that motivates and inspires even higher performance. When a bonus is just absorbed into the next salary cheque it tends to be taken for granted as what someone deserves, a salary increase,  and tends to lose its motivational power as feedback.

In one study 72% of staff said that the most motivating way their manager could  communicate with them was by walking around and having conversations with them as he/she walked – “management by walking around.”

4.     Don’t underestimate the power of indirect feedback. This is an acknowledgement that the organisation and you as the manager values the whole person, not just the one who works for them. Indirect feedback is a powerful motivator of loyalty and commitment.

 ·      Remember important people in their lives. Ask about their partner and children and family.

·       Acknowledge important occasions in their lives - birthdays, anniversaries, the first day they started work here.

·       Show interest in their activities – their sport, their community involvement, their hobbies.

5.     Where you need to have a sit-down longer discussion with someone where you want to give feedback that is aimed at motivating them, consider where the best environment is to do that. Think outside the square. Even consider a coffee shop.

6.     Talk with your people about how you can help them best. In other words, ask for feedback for yourself. Listen to them – remember we have 2 ears and 1 mouth. Stephen Covey’s 5^th habit of highly effective people is - Seek first to understand and then to be understood.  

7.     This is also about knowing your people and what type of feedback best motivates them.

      Common motivators:

      -           training and professional development.

      -           mentoring or coaching.

      -           being noticed and being valued and appreciated.

      -           liking public accolades.

      -           being given prizes or gifts.

      -           being given a financial bonus.

            -           having flexible work hours.

8.     Follow up on feedback. Not doing this is a major reason why feedback does not reap the desired outcomes. After giving feedback, managers need to follow up with their people both informally - checking in on the run as it were - and formally by setting an actual time and date in the next 14-30 days to sit down and review how things are   going.

9.     Think win/win when giving feedback. How can both the team member and the organisation win from this situation? “What we want from this project and from you is…….How do you think you can do that? What can  I do to help you?”

The best outcomes result when you and your team member can agree on how something will be done and of your respective roles in achieving the outcome.

10.     When you know what the person’s goals are for their professional and career development within the organisation, you can align their goals with those of the organisation. What do they want to achieve? Give feedback then in relation to what they need to do to achieve those goals.

Giving feedback will bring most significant results when it moves beyond being a set of strategies or tips, as we are listing here, to becoming inherent in the culture of the organisation

Such a culture has Psychological Contracts in place – “if you look after our organisation, we will look after you”.  

This is a culture where people work WITH their managers and the organisation, not just FOR them.

It’s a culture where mutual trust exists between the organisation and its people, between managers and their team members.