One of the most difficult things about providing employee feedback is to actually get TO IT!
Unfortunately many managers and supervisors “wish it away,” and deal with a behavioral or performance issue by ignoring it.
That simply doesn’t work!
One way to help you get to the point of actually providing that feedback is to make sure you are prepared for the discussion. One of the reasons people “ignore” having the discussion is that they fear the employee’s reaction. And this could be justifiable – because if you are not prepared for the conversation, it can go in one of several directions. Many outa your control.
Preparation involves a number of things:
Emotional preparation – your head needs to be in a positive place, absent of any kind of anger or disgust related to the situation prompting the feedback.
Information preparation – when addressing a behavioral challenge, it is important to have solid examples of the mishaps.
Focus – when your focus is on the future, both you and your employee will have a productive conversation. If you dwell too much on the past, and try to make the employees feel bad for his or her actions, all you will do is create defensiveness.
Timing – the sooner you address an issue, the better. But again it’s better to address something late then nodded all.
Goal – it is helpful for you to be clear on the goal for your discussion. To be able to describe the behavior you want to see goes a long way in helping the employee understand his or her future behaviors.
We are excited to have just released a 12 minute video going into much more detail on how to prepare for that conversation. Click here, and join others in a useful dialogue about this challenging task.
Join the convo! https://www.marshaegan.com/fbformula-videos
