Case Study #31: How to Give a Good Performance Feedback
Prioritize.
If you think about feedback, you may think, “I want to help others”.
They say feedback is a gift. But as with gifts, not every gift is welcomed and good for a person.
Ugly socks. A candle. A pen. Or too much feedback. This is what happened in one corporate team. It went like this:
A team hired a new colleague, Peter. From the beggining, he was promising. He learned quickly. He was kind and friendly to others. All ingredients were there.
Everyone was so excited about Peter that they gave him a case study to show what he learned so far. Peter worked on it diligently, and was proud of the result.
The moment of truth was a presentation of his case. The other attendees were his immediate manager, a knowledge manager, and another manager from a different team. They all wanted to see him in action.
When Peter was done, it chaos started. All managers had something to say. “This could be.” “That could have been.” “I would add.” “This was not backed up with data.”
They all spoke and gave points after points.
Peter’s head was spinnig. His enthusiams was going down to toilet. He felt completely rubbish.
What did the leadership team do wrong? How would you deliver good performance feedback?
Overwhelming feedback
The classic mistake people make when it comes to feedback is trying to fix everything.
They pick up on details and disregard the effort or intention people put into their work.
“This is wrong.”
“This is also wrong.”
“This could have been done, XY.”
If you have ever been in such a position, you must have felt emotionally hijacked and bad. You will likely question your skills and abilities when receiving such feedback.
“Am I good enough?”
Feedback can kill enthusiasm and feed your importer syndrome.
So, the important thing with feedback is to keep it sleek and elegant. You know yourself that when you get 50+ points to fix, you will feel overwhelmed and for sure forget about some.
When you do have feedback, review, and planned check-in, be ready to narrow it down to a few points.
When went terribly badly with Peter’s meeting is obvious. Managers competed with each other. Each wanted to show they can give feedback. It was not about Peter. It was about them.
When you have more people delivering feedback, it will likely derail quickly. One wants to say something, the other wants to say something else. Then the first one again.
It is a mess.
Feedback rule no.1 is don’t overwhelm people. It is more than enough when they hear 2-3 things (or better, 1-2) that they should focus on.
It is likely that people don’t hear you anyway after the first big granate of “This is wrong.” Don’t risk it and keep it focused.
Feedback needs slices. You don’t eat the whole bread at once. You time it and enjoy it with time. Today, tomorrow, the day after…
Who is in charge?
“Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
Multiple people giving feedback? Good and bad.
When you have a new person who is just learning, working with multiple people is a great experience. Different styles and ideas help newbies to pick up things quickly.
Still, you need to draw a line.
Peter was a rising star. But every star needs space to shine. If you have multiple people talking about your performance, it could be confusing. Even more when you have it in ONE meeting.
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