People seem to have contradictory feelings about critical feedback. Most people will say they hate it, but some studies show that most of us would like more feedback than we currently receive even if it’s critical. However, many leaders are hesitant to share critical feedback because they worry about how the person on the receiving end will react.
What Can Happen If We Don’t Share Critical Feedback?
Perhaps we have a team member who has a performance issue. We are aware of this, but we can’t quite steel ourselves to tackle the problem. However, by not facing the difficulty head on, we are also impacting the rest of our team, who have gradually lost respect for the under-performing team member and for ourselves because we failed to do something about it.
We hope the problem will just go away, but instead it escalates until, eventually, the offending person’s employment is called into question. We finally are forced to talk to the team member about the problem, but by that point, everyone is so frustrated that the team member is destined for failure. It’s impossible for this individual to improve quickly enough, and they will probably lose their job.
Refusing to Share Critical Feedback Is Unfair and Unkind
We may have a team member with a long history of treating co-workers and customers poorly. Despite numerous complaints, no previous managers had addressed the issue with him because they were afraid he would respond aggressively. Because no one told him there was a problem, he naturally kept behaving the way he always did.
By the time we decide to address the issue, the train is probably too far down the tracks, and the person simply isn’t able to change his behavior. The outcome is that he loses his job. This situation could most likely have been avoided if previous team leaders had done their jobs properly and shared the critical messages that needed to be shared.
Sugarcoating Tough Feedback Doesn’t Help
If we are in charge of a problem employee, we might be tempted to share critical feedback infrequently and cautiously. Under the guise of kindness, we might try to soften feedback by downplaying the issue in the following ways:
· Even when we know the issue is the cause of major problems, we “sandwich” a critical message between a couple of compliments, so the person leaves feeling happy.
· We sympathize by saying we’ve all made similar mistakes in the past.
· We dilute the message by beating around the bush or saying too much.
· We touch on the problem but end the conversation by telling the employee that they are doing well. The necessary critical feedback is entirely lost amidst fuzzy compliments.
Unfortunately, the more justification we provide and the more we downplay a difficult message, the less likely the person is to receive the news we’re trying to impart.
When sharing a hard message, it’s best to be assertive and direct. That doesn’t mean we should never share genuine positive messages along with more negative ones. However, when we do, we must be abundantly clear with our direct feedback to ensure the core message is not lost.
By sharing direct and candid feedback, a problem employee might realize the significance of the problem and be motivated to alter his behavior and thus keep his job.
We May Have a Misguided Sense of Kindness
We seem to be hardwired to believe that critical feedback is unkind because it could hurt the recipient’s feelings. However, employee problems can occur if we give in to a misguided sense of kindness because we value our personal emotional comfort over another’s growth.
But think hard about what is more unkind. We can be honest with someone and, in the process, allow them to improve. Or, we can set them up for failure because they have not been made to fully realize that there is a problem.
Unfortunately, if our overwhelming fear is causing emotional pain to someone, we may leave many bodies in our wake. We are potentially lowering the quality standards of our organization, permitting problems to fester, and causing people to get fired when they might have been able to improve.
In her book Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, former Netflix Chief Talent Officer Patty McCord, who doesn’t believe in Chief Happiness Officer, sums up the problem perfectly:
One of the most important insights anyone in business can have is that it’s not cruel to tell people the truth respectfully and honestly.
If we can embrace that idea and redefine the notion of kindness to include candor, we will enhance the development of our team and our organization.
Critical Feedback: Final Thoughts
Giving critical feedback is difficult, but it’s also a very selfless thing to do. We need to put more value on another’s growth and less on our personal comfort.
Our next article will follow up on the subject of critical feedback and discuss ways to be candid without coming across as insensitive.
For additional reading, check out these great books on feedback:
Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson
Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott
Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Finally, if you want to improve your leadership skills including the ability to apply effective critical feedback, Shaping Development can help. Contact us today to learn more.