I’m a big fan of the Fixable podcast. Here are two episodes that will help you serve and support the team members who work with you.
- How to Give Great Feedback. Most of us give feedback poorly, and get lousy feedback from those who give it to us. This episode focuses on how to give it better, and accept it even when it is clumsily given. Essential takeaways from this episode:
- There are two types of feedback: evaluative (backward looking. How’d you do? — e.g. a test grade or performance rating) and improvement-oriented (forward looking. What to change? — e.g. comments on the first draft of a memo or paper, done to make the next draft better). Evaluative feedback should be honest, clear, and transparent.
- More important (and harder to get right) is improvement-oriented feedback. There are two kinds of this.
- positive reinforcement — catching people in the act of doing something well, and pointing it out with specificity as close to when it happens as you can. You should be sincere and your listener should know how to replicate the good behavior again. Do this often, and publicly, so everyone gets a sharper understanding of what “good” looks like. If you have to choose one of the two kinds of feedback, choose this one. Your ratio of positive reinforcement to constructive advice should be no less than 5:1.
- Constructive advice — do this thoughtfully, in private, and at a time when the person you are speaking to is going to be able to hear it. Again, you’ll be specific, sincere, and focus your comments on the actionable change: what they should stop or do less of, and what they should try instead, as well as why you think that will work better. Remember that hearing someone with authority telling you that you’re not so good at an important function can activate a threat response, so be thoughtful about the timing of your delivery. (But don’t try to bury or soften the constructive advice in a lot of flattery or compliments. The ‘criticism sandwich’ doesn’t work.)
- How to Bring Out The Best In Others. People rise to the occasion when we deliver two inputs into the relationship.
- Show people your high standards.
- Show people that you are devoted to their success.
These aren’t a trade-off, but it’s easy to think they are. It’s not “nicer” to let people off the hook. And it’s not more effective to withhold our personal investment in their success.
If you think of a quadrant with the two inputs on the X and Y axis, the top right is high standards, high devotion. Frei and Morris, the podcast hosts, call that “true love.” The bottom left is low standards, low devotion. That’s invisibility, inattention. The other two axes are high standards, low devotion — “tough love.” And low standards, high devotion — “indulgence.” Neither of those get the outcomes you want.
I’d be curious how this maps onto your experience, both of managing others and of being managed.
