Not many people out there feel comfortable pointing out someone else’s weaknesses to them
Especially face to face with someone in a private meeting that can feel a lot like an interrogation. Face to face engagement when delivering criticism is awkward for pretty much everyone!
People also care about their employees and we can develop good and respected professional relationships with them, making it an even more undesirable task.
You are probably aware that this criticism is going to have some kind of impact on your employee’s emotional state. Maybe they will take it on the chin or maybe they will get upset? Now you’re in an interrogation room with someone you know and you’re playing an emotional Russian roulette!
Finally, you might find yourself underprepared and held back by all of the negative connotations of giving feedback. I will talk more about this in my post next week, so keep an eye out for that.
So, now you’re an underprepared negative Nancy playing emotional Russian roulette in an interrogation with a valued member of your team. I am getting sweaty just thinking about it!
This might be a tough pill to swallow but the truth is that you might just be avoiding feedback to protect yourself.
A study of 263 students who were asked to read and provide feedback on another student’s essay suggests that this is the case. The study also found that giving undue praise is also part of protecting yourself.
You can read more about the study here.
In conclusion, Carla Jeffries who led the experiments said that her team’s findings could have an impact on businesses.
“The data … speak[s] to the importance of developing cultures that encourage frank and fearless feedback giving and non-defensive feedback receiving…Strong and positive feedback cultures might help overcome some of the fears of feedback-givers, and reduce the tendency for feedback to be adjusted as a function of who is watching.”
Dan Ariely performed a fantastic TED Talk called “what makes us feel good about our work”. You can watch the video below. I highly recommend it!
In this talk, he discusses all of his experiments which point to that fact that work that is not recognised or performance that is ignored is just has bad as “shredding their effort in front of their eyes.”
He mainly discusses it in the context of how people take more pride in something they have worked hard for and they can become despondent if their effort is left unrecognised. Giving feedback is showing your employees that you both recognise and value their work. Even if it didn’t go as expected, feedback is about looking at the hurdles that were met and guiding your employee on how to overcome them for next time.
In his study’s Ariely found that people were more engaged and motivated by more difficult tasks, which highlights the fact that people want to be challenged and do a good job. If you give undue praise or you ignore work that isn’t meeting expectations, then this will actually have more of a negative impact.
This is really highlighted by the part in his talk when he describes a condition called, “The Sysphic condition”. This condition is based on the story of Sisyphus. He was punished by the Gods to push a rock up a hill. When he reached the top, it would roll back down and he would need to start again.
If someone is not performing well or is experiencing a challenge which is continuously affecting their performance, is it not the same as fruitlessly pushing a rock up a hill only for it to roll back down and needing to start again?
Giving feedback can help people overcome challenges and perform better, allowing them to get more fruits for their labour, whether it be from deserved praise or the better results.
I will talk more about this in next week’s post.
So I will leave you this thought. Is it better or easier to watch them struggle with the rock or help them push it over the hill?
If you want to talk more about employee engagement or feedback and appraisals then give us a call for a chat on 01256 328 428.