Over the past two decades of coaching and consulting, a recurring theme has been the effectiveness of conversations that involve feedback or relate to performance.
I think that there are a couple of reasons that this never really leaves the development agenda:
1. Some things change:
The way we lead organisations, what we ask people to pay attention to, ways of working, the nature of the job role, and the measures of success. What was considered a great contribution twenty years ago may not cut the mustard today. As what’s required changes, so does the way we discuss it.
2. Some things never change:
The ability to lead effective conversations about performance is the most advanced of communication skills. It’s a difficult activity because we are bumping up against human nature. None of us really enjoy being measured, compared, evaluated or critiqued. Just one badly positioned word or statement could easily disrupt the conversation dynamic and provoke defensiveness or resistance.
I have worked on this topic in a wide range of organisations, from SMEs to some of the UK’s biggest brands, so I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience in this blog:
Do you need a process?
Sometimes, the rigid process for feedback and appraisal can be limiting, but it would seem that there is a need for it. I remember working with a large bank that unfortunately blew up shortly after the financial crisis of 2008, (which was a shame because they were a great client and had a good culture). They discovered that the process they were using to facilitate conversations about performance was limiting the quality of the conversations; Following the prescriptive tick boxes was making interactions stilted, robotic and un-empathetic.
They decided to abandon the process altogether and instead encouraged people leaders just to have honest and positive conversations more naturally. Brilliant idea in principle, but the reality was that people stopped having conversations. Without the prompt of a process and the inflexibility of deadlines, conversations don’t happen at all.
The process may be robotic, but it serves as a ‘crutch’ to help people leaders approach and structure the conversation. Without it, approaching the conversation effectively is entirely dependent upon the communication skills of the people leader.
Receptive Mindset
Of all of the factors that affect our ability to take on board feedback, the one that has the most impact is the quality of our relationship with the person giving it.
If we know somebody is on our side or has our back, it’s far easier to engage in the process without feeling defensive. For example, which would you rather receive, challenging feedback from someone that you trust has your best interests at heart or complimentary feedback from someone you distrust?
For most of us, it is the level of trust and the ability to be open that allows us to drop the defences and fully engage.
Defending yourself against feedback of any nature is a massive waste of time. It changes nothing and deprives you of the opportunity to learn and grow. If you successfully defend your limitations, the prize is that you get to keep them! An elite performer would not defend themselves against feedback from their coach.
As a manager or leader of people, our ability to create authentic working relationships so that individuals are receptive to feedback is what makes growth and development possible.
Question Expectations
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a socio-psychological phenomenon of making a prediction that causes itself to become true due to positive reinforcement. We believe that something will happen, and our behaviour changes to fulfil the belief.
If you give feedback to someone and you are thinking, “This will be difficult.” That expectation will be awkwardly visible in your behaviour. If you have negative expectations about the feedback you are receiving, you will not be able to properly hear what is being said.
The route out of this drama is to frame conversations by beginning them by being extremely clear and overt about the positive intentions of the conversation. In doing so, you achieve three things:
1. Managing expectation
In so many activities, we just begin and hope that we communicate clearly enough for people to work out where we are coming from and where we are going. Why leave it to chance? Clear framing in advance allows you to have a conversation about the conversation that will follow. It establishes relevancy, creates an opportunity to agree on how to proceed together, and can even be used to introduce the elephant in the room if needs be.
2. Priming attention
Setting clear positive intentions for the conversation means that is what we will expect and look for evidence of. It creates a helpful confirmation bias or a positive self-fulfilling prophecy. We have much more chance of facilitating a conversation to growth and development outcomes if we have signposted that’s where we are going from the start.
3. Separating intention from the message
Without taking the time to fame the intent of the conversation, the recipient of the feedback may ‘shoot the messenger’. To avoid this you must separate your role in the conversation from the explicit points covered within it. It must be clear that your intention in delivering and exploring the message is positive, even if the message itself is challenging.
Feedback is Subjective
One of the dangers of well-documented feedback processes is that we can fall into the trap of thinking that the feedback is factual.
For the most part, feedback is a generalised conclusion. It tells us about people’s perceptions and the results of our actions. It doesn’t tell us about the complex priorities, circ*mstances and choices that add up to those results. To get the value out of feedback, we must dig a little deeper. If it’s an outcome, how did it happen? If it’s an output, what did you do?
For feedback to be truly helpful, whether it’s positive or negative, we must explore the reality of what specifically contributed to the feedback.
When faced with challenging feedback, the most unhelpful responses are to either take it on as an absolute truth or reject it completely. Both are overreactions that prevent you from properly exploring it.
The most helpful way to attribute meaning to feedback that you receive is to consider it to be 50% true. By thinking of it as a partial truth, there is no need to defend yourself against it or take it onboard universally.
Focus on the future
All too often, performance conversations are an autopsy of the past in order to justify a number or to have something concrete to talk about.
The consequence is that a great deal of the conversation is retrospective, leaving little time and attention for exploring the future.
Reflecting on and learning from the past is an essential part of self-development, but for managing performance, it’s less important than what you will do next. The past has happened. Whatever lessons we learn from the past, we must put into the future to make a difference.
If you don’t know exactly what you will do differently tomorrow, then the feedback is being used for justification, not for development.
Behaviour is easy to change, but intention is stickier
Most people think of behaviour change as something that’s quite tricky to achieve, but it’s really easy.
It’s not behaviour that people hold on to, it’s how the behaviour serves them.
Any given behaviour is driven by an intention, and that intention is really important to them. That’s why it’s almost impossible to stop a behaviour, but easy to replace it.
In exploring how to behave differently, we must work with our intrinsic motivations.
To do this, question the intent or motive that is driving the current behaviour, then explore different behaviours that will serve the intent/motive in a more healthy, harmonious or effective way.
You cannot stop or change behaviour, but you can shift and replace it.
Free Book
In 2009, I co-authored a book called “Feedback or Criticism?” which provides a method for having brilliant conversations about performance.
Please DM me for a complimentary copy.
