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Bram Naus

A Proven Strategy for Performance Management: 360º Feedback

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2020 is changing the way we work, without question. As the nature of the workplace transforms, performance management faces new challenges. We’ve seen many workforces undergo a rapid shift to remote. A Gartner survey of 229 HR leaders in April 2020 revealed that 81% of their employees had shifted to working remotely. The study noted that even post-pandemic, remote work will not only continue, but increase. At the same time, workforces with employees deemed “essential” face additional pressure and stress. That stress includes how to stay safe, let alone engaged. The onus is on managers to keep up. 

The fundamentals of effective, modern performance management haven’t changed: to build and maintain engagement, alignment, and growth. Feedback is critical in this process, as we know. One challenge now is how to measure performance and gather data as well as provide feedback in real time. Another challenge: Finding a system that connects the whole workforce and collects data over the long term. 

Empowered by a digital platform, 360º feedback is a proven way to meet these challenges. 360º should be part of your overall talent management strategy, whether your future plans include an on-site, remote, or blended workforce. To optimize its potential, here are three critical strategies:

Cover All Four Corners

The best way to get an accurate picture of how any individual is doing? Make sure you’re getting feedback from all four corners of the workforce. That includes the manager, peers, any direct reports, and others in the organization. 

Feedback on leaders should hew to this principle as well. It can be tough to get a clear picture of a leader’s effectiveness for a number of reasons. A digitally powered feedback program with built-in anonymity and uniform survey questions will certainly help overcome any reluctance to ‘speak freely’ about a leader. Asking for feedback on leaders as part of a customary cycle of feedback also helps. Rather than an exception to the rule, this makes it part of a normal process. And since leaders themselves can have difficulty with self-assessment, this reduces any undue stress.

Ask the Right Questions

If you don’t ask the right questions, you won’t get constructive or relevant feedback. Establish the key questions you need to ask. Tailor those questions to your industry, your market, and the nature of your own company. Make sure they are tied into the objectives of the process, as well as the nature of the role they’re meant to survey. 

There are two goals to keep in mind here, as well. First, ensure feedback can drive more self-understanding and better growth for the employee, and help managers provide an unvarnished but fair review that focuses on strengths as well as weaknesses. Second, design questions that engage participants to answer them. Don’t overload a survey with too many questions, or ask multiple questions on the same topics. It’s also a better practice to combine open-ended questions with multiple choice and rating questions. That way, participants can weigh in using their own words.

Provide Manager Training

Build in training and coaching for managers on how to best implement 360º Feedback so the process is set for success. That means getting clear on consistent terminology and guidelines. As Primalogik’s new ebook, Essential Performance Management Solutions for Today’s HR, points out, “T​o allow for fair comparisons of employees’ contributions, reviewers need to be using the same guidelines.” Guide managers on how to establish the right criteria and work with their employees to set individual as well as organizational objectives. Managers should also explain the process and its purpose. Specifically, they should clarify what employees should expect, and send periodic reminders and prompts over the feedback platform.   

Managers should also plan to conduct plenty of follow-up. That follow-up should include a one-on-one discussion with employees to review feedback. A plan for improving performance in any areas of concern should also be included. Beyond that, managers may also want to conduct regular, frequent check-ins with employees to make sure they’re on track and comfortable. A recent Workhuman study showed that regular check-ins are key drivers of engagement: 85% of the workers surveyed reported higher levels of engagement with weekly check-ins. Making growth an ongoing conversation may greatly improve the outcome: it’s easier to improve in small steps than all at once, and real-time feedback — coming from multiple directions — has a clarity to it that’s far more engaging. 

360º Feedback is Performance Management

360º Feedback is most effective when it’s part of an overall employer commitment to employee growth and development, and when it’s designed to show strengths and growth for everyone. When an organization is transparent about wanting to be the best it can be, and gives the workforce the means to participate fully, there’s a clear alignment. Employees feel a part of the process, not the recipients of it.

We’re all learning how to be better at using data and fully engage and communicate in the digital workplace. Digital feedback platforms keep us connected, providing a clear picture of performance grounded with multiple sources of feedback and data. It’s a powerful way to update performance management, and drive manager as well as team success.

 

This post is sponsored by Primalogik.

 

Photo: Christina @ wocintechchat.com

The Power of Check-Ins: 7 Proven Strategies

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A large component of any work culture is how managers assess and review employee performance and chart progress. Given the remote and hybrid nature of so many workplaces today, the approach is evolving — from top-down, unilateral, formal reviews to more dynamic and continual conversations. We’re seeing an increasing need for transparency and authenticity, and for recognizing how important it is for managers to reach out to employees — not just around a series of tasks accomplished, but around overall contributions to the organization and their own sense of goals and performance. Check-ins enable managers and employees to do just that. They create a framework of interaction and communication through a continuous cycle, and are proving far more effective than traditional reviews. They’re becoming a hallmark of modern talent management, and for good reason. 

Done well, check-ins build a dynamic relationship between manager and employee that increases engagement, enhances employee experience, and organically aligns employee and employer goals. But they need to be conducted not as check-ups, but as two-way interactions focused on trust as well as growth. 

The Value of Trust

For those already doing them right, check-ins with employees are focused on growth, albeit in small doses. It’s not hard to connect a cadence of conversations that include feedback, advice and dialogue to the development of our employees after all. But trust is just as key: all successful relationships are built on trust, especially in today’s workplace. It’s human nature to reject feedback and advice from someone we don’t trust, and that extends readily into the workplace. Without trust, the check-in process would fail before it started.

As with any other HR strategy there are best practices for conducting check-ins, whether from home or the office. Recently I sat down with TalentCulture’s Meghan M. Biro to level-set on seven critical factors that can standardize your check-in strategy — without diminishing either responsiveness or flexibility:   

Approach: Check-ins are not about a top-down, unilateral approach. While the role of managers has always entailed authority and supervision, when it comes to check-ins, managers need to scale back that dynamic. 

Replace the reflex to be assertive with a focus on the employee. Truly understand what makes them tick; this means listening to their thoughts, opinions and concerns and acting on them. Research by the Harvard Business Review shows that the more you listen to employees, the better they think you are at giving feedback, and so the more likely they are to trust what you say. 

Purpose: Check-ins embody a shift in purpose. They depart from the static occasion of traditional reviews to setting up a highly effective and ongoing dynamic geared to building trust and fostering growth. 

Dave Ulrich articulated the shift in his book, Victory Through Organization: “The foundational assumption is that feedback is not a leader’s side-responsibility; it is the leader’s primary work.” Instead of thinking of a check-in as an isolated moment or a mini-performance review, consider it a touchpoint on the employee lifecycle; an interaction that’s part of an ongoing conversation. 

Frequency: Establish a cadence of check-ins that adapts to the circumstance, the context, and the nature of your work culture. Pre-COVID, our advice was to conduct check-ins around every 4 to 6 weeks. But these are uncertain times — and they call for increased communication that’s aligned and consistent with the organizational message, culture and values. The bottom line is that you can’t overcommunicate. 

Your check-ins can take various forms, from a regular update focused on clarification and feedback; to a more comprehensive appraisal of performance (emphasizing personal development and employee contribution); to a marker of key events, such as onboarding, a promotion, a secondment, or even the shift to remote. But don’t do away with ad-hoc check-ins either. Employees and managers should be able to simply initiate a check-in regardless of whether it’s on the calendar. 

Approachability: Both parties should remain open and responsive within the context of a check-in. But that hinges on successfully building that foundation of trust: trust must be in place first in order for both parties to commit effectively. For managers, that means creating a sense of trust in the first place. Two simple ways to build trust: first, make it clear that either the manager or the employee is free to request a check-in at any time, for any reason — whether a formal discussion or a quick catch up. Second, whatever is covered, make it a conversation, in which you combine a review of tasks with questions about overall state of mind, and give the employee plenty of room to answer. Listening to your team members reinforces the fact that check-ins are not an exercise in powerplay, but on the contrary, a forum for two adults to meet on equal terms. 

In my discussion with Meghan, she pointed out the value of flattening the expected hierarchy: “For employees who may be used to taking a passive role in their own professional development, check-ins change the game. Instead of receiving advice and feedback, they get to play a lead role in assessing and guiding their own development.” This means it’s incumbent upon employees to not just discuss how the work is going, but also focus on the direction they want to be heading in, and the skills they need to get there.This dynamic empowers employees, strengthening their performance and loyalty. 

Addressing the whole person: The manager needs to continually remind themselves that the check-in is not just about the job at hand. It’s not about a singular project. It needs to happen with an eye on the bigger picture, and the employee as a whole person, particularly right now. As well as addressing an employee’s performance and contributions, use the check-in time to reinforce a sense of social connection and foster the essential relationships we all need and depend on to work. 

Go beyond this, addressing any safety concerns the employee may have, which are so common as we navigate the minefield of COVID-19. Discuss the future in terms of a trajectory, not a fixed point, including what kinds of skills and behaviors need to be developed and supported. And use deeper questions to address aspects of wellness and health. Employers have a duty of care, and the more we all experience the integration of work and life, the more check-ins can play a helpful role.

Language: This is not just a matter of tone; it’s also a matter of clarity. Managers in particular need to focus on how to clarify and improve their language during check-ins, and be accountable for what you say as well as how to say it. What’s come to the fore during the shift to remote as well as the increased pressure on essential workers is that we need interactions that convey a clear perception of what is expected and how we are performing. 

That should seem a simple matter, but the nature of remote and hybrid working is that we’re communicating across multiple channels that may not deliver the same way as face to face. As Meghan pointed out, “Tone and language are more important than ever, and they’re harder to get right when we’re working virtually.” Managers should purposefully practice conducting check-ins until they’re comfortable enough that the action becomes a habit. 

Measuring the change: Effective check-ins offer two dimensions of measurable  impact over time. There’s the personal impact, or developmental path, and a business impact, or performance/contribution. Managers and leaders have a duty to effectively enable the workforce to achieve a high-high combination, in which both aspects see growth:

We’re been witnessing a sea change in how we work for a while. We’ve seen a shift to teams as the essential unit of operations, as opposed to individuals collected under a supervisor. We’ve seen a new emphasis on democratizing data. Further, there’s been a marked increase in the ability to work remotely. All have raised the bar on what constitutes a great work culture. The situation we find ourselves in now has put the onus on better communication overall, including how we provide feedback to employees, and even whether or not “providing” is the right term. We’re seeing the fruits of allowing both parties to be actively involved in feedback and reviews, and we’re seeing the benefits of grounding these conversations in trust and framing them as a continuing cycle rather than a rare event. 

Check-ins are a powerfully effective tool for inviting employees to own their own growth and contribution in your organization. They provide a means to build and maintain better manager-employee relationships, align around shared goals, and turn the workplace into a high-performing, engaged community.

This post is sponsored by MHR International.

How to be Strategic When Choosing Performance Review Types

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Whether your company conducts performance reviews annually, biannually, quarterly or through other means, such as 360-degree feedback and through engagements surveys, each has its pros and cons. And as each business has its unique needs, there is no “right” performance review structure, though I have my favorites.

Annual

Performance reviews are typically once-a-year reviews where managers meet with their employees to discuss performance, highlight areas for improvement and plan for the upcoming year. While I have no problems with the agenda of such a meeting, I do take issue with the frequency.

Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution – “I’ll go to the gym five days a week” – only for your resolve to fade in the second week? Just like your priorities change, so, too, do those of a business. For this reason, the annual review has become a relic, reminiscent of old-school HR processes.

Aside from the infrequency of the meetings being wholly impractical from a business perspective, their infrequency also places great pressure on both sides: Managers and employees have an entire year’s worth of performance to discuss in one short meeting. In addition, unless your manager is highly organized and has kept detailed notes on each employee and their performance throughout the year, it becomes very difficult to recall things from ten or eleven months ago. The annual review has become outdated and with good reason.

Biannual

As the name suggests, biannual reviews are held twice per year. They follow much of the same procedure as annual reviews: They are meetings between managers and their employees to discuss performance, highlight areas for improvement and plan goals for the next six months. They have largely the same pitfalls as the annual review, as their effectiveness is marred by their infrequency. However, I still prefer and recommend a biannual review cycle over an annual one.

Quarterly

Quarterly reviews are held four times per year. They, too, follow a similar format to the annual and biannual review. For most contemporary companies, quarterly is the optimal frequency with which to hold employee performance reviews.

They are frequent enough so incidents are more easy to recall, as less time has passed since the last review period (compared to annual or biannual reviews) but aren’t so frequent as to become burdensome. Additionally, most business work in terms of quarters. Therefore, having your review period on the same quarterly schedule can be advantageous as goals and objectives can be more closely aligned with those of the business. They enable easier evaluation of company goals and can easily be reset as company goals and priorities change.

360-degree feedback

This type of feedback is perhaps the jewel in the feedback crown. It provides feedback and input from those all around you. Instead of the traditional model where an employee is evaluated by their manager, 360-degree feedback combines feedback from peers, managers and those who report to you.

By receiving feedback from managers, co-workers and colleagues, employees receive a more rounded view of their performance, skills and competencies. Crucially, peer feedback can very often be the most valuable as they are the people who know you best. Colleagues work alongside you daily, collaborating on projects. Therefore, they are perhaps the best positioned to provide you with accurate feedback.

In a sense, the feedback can be viewed as more valid and objective as it is from such a varied, diverse audience. And because of this, it provides a unique opportunity to uncover areas that may need development or expose gaps in knowledge that could be valuable. Such feedback can then be incorporated into employee improvement or development plans.

Engagement survey

Happy employees produce better work, are more engaged with the company and its objectives, and also are more likely to stick around. It’s no surprise that companies with the highest rates of employee engagement, like Google, also have similarly high rates of employee retention.

There are no standard drivers of engagement; however, some commonly assessed factors include advancement, recognition, pay and benefits, job role, training and development opportunities, leadership, work environment, etc. When employees are engaged, it opens a channel of communication between them and management, and they can provide feedback that can be valuable to the organization. Further, the inclusion of employees in day-to-day aspects of the company’s operations makes employees feel valued – that not only are they listened to, but their opinions are valued, too.

Where to now?

While each of the above performance review styles, strategies and frequencies have inherent advantages and disadvantages, none on their own can adequately measure employee performance, engagement and general job satisfaction.

Instead, I advocate for a process whereby two or more of these frequences and styles are combined. For example, combining quarterly or biannual reviews with 360-degree feedback can help employees remain engaged, and, by default, you begin to foster a culture of continuous learning and development within your company. Further, your review cycle is shorter, as you hold performance management meetings more frequently and, therefore, these meetings are easier to prepare for (plus they are more timely).

Implementing 360-degree feedback systems can help your business more effectively encourage in-office communications and cultivate a culture of open employee feedback. Contemporary 360-degree software solutions can increase the amount of feedback your employees provide, plus they can be anonymous, which allows employees to provide open, honest feedback.

Another bonus of using 360-degree software is that regular check-ins make employee performance reviews a much less daunting task for managers as the information is clearly and readily available via automatically generated reports as provided by your software solution.

This article by Steffen Maier originally published on Business.com.

Photo Credit: visitbasis Flickr via Compfight cc

Why Employees Hate Annual Reviews

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The world of work has changed forever. Most business leaders I speak with are still relying on outdated management practices from the industrial revolution that are no longer effective, or worse, that actually contribute to challenges with employee productivity and performance. One of the main practices standing in the way of progress is the annual review.

To succeed today, companies cannot rely on the most important conversations between managers and employees happening only once or twice a year. Moreover, organizations cannot operate in a paradigm where information flows upstream to leaders, who then make decisions in isolation before passing down directives for employees.

Companies must be flexible and agile by decentralizing decision making, providing the people who are closest to the problems the autonomy to decide and act on behalf of their organization. This rapidly speeds up their turn on actions, quickly resolving issues and innovating faster than ever before.

One of the trends that we are seeing in the last couple of years is that companies are shifting away from traditional performance reviews, getting rid of them altogether or only using them as part of an overall performance management strategy. In 2015, Deloitte announced that they would reinvent performance reviews based on findings that “the best team leaders revealed that they conduct regular check-ins with each team member about near-term work.”

The 15Five team has assembled an ebook designed to explore the annual review process, it’s origins, benefits and downsides. My hope is that this will be a valuable resource for your internal communication and performance management strategies. What follows is an excerpt from Chapter 3, What Employees Think:

The short answer… annual reviews suck.

Who wants to be scrutinized and risk being told that they are inadequate by what they see as unfair representations of actual performance. Plus many reviews are accompanied by rating and ranking systems. Take for example, “rank and yank” popularized by former head of GE Jack Welch, in the 1980’s:

Employees were given a rank based on performance. Only the upper percentiles of high-performers were given promotions and raises. As a result, people directly competed with each other for rewards, hurting collaboration. Not to mention that the lowest 10% were fired.

With rank and yank, productivity alone does not inform the results, as it is productivity relative to other employees. Even when employees were productive when judged against objective standards, their relatively “poor” performance was cause for dismissal.

GE abandoned rank and yank years ago, but in 2015 they announced their decision to abandon performance reviews altogether in lieu of more regular feedback via an app called PD@GE (Performance Development at General Electric).

How Reliable Is A Self-Assessment?

Even without raking employees, reviews are often criticized for being unreliable and counter-productive. Employees spend the months leading up to them politicking for position instead of doing actual work. A typical scenario goes like this:

In November, an employee gets an email from their manager (or worse, from HR) with an attached form. The form asks what the employee did over the past twelve months, how they think they performed, and what are their strengths and weaknesses. So instead of working that day, employees spend hours carefully crafting a document that paints them in the best light possible.

All sorts of issues including whether a manager hired or inherited an employee can bias a performance review. And cut-throat environments tend to alienate talented employees. They experience high levels of stress and anxiety, which decreases productivity, morale, and overall job satisfaction. Those employees are likely to search for new employment at a more supportive culture.

High-performers understand that there is constant room for improvement, and they thrive when given the opportunity to give and receive constructive feedback. If managers are not talking with them on a consistent basis, they’ll leave to pursue ‘greener pastures’ where they feel they’ll be heard and valued.

Companies that remove ratings are seeing the conversations shift from justifying past performance to thinking about growth and development. Their employees are happier, which encourages more engagement and better performance.

Key Takeaways:

Outdated thinking continues to impact growth in the modern workplace. Ranking people and providing financial incentives for performance is really only effective in standard manufacturing environments. But the industrial revolution is over, and companies need to empower their employees so that they will be more engaged and effective at their roles.

The Rank and Yank performance management process does not inform results, and is counter-productive to fostering collaboration and productivity.

Look hard at your performance management process and aim to have frequent conversations about employee growth and development, not justifying past performance. When managers coach their employees to grow and succeed, they will be more engaged and effective in their roles.

Additional resources:  The Uncertain Future of the Annual Performance Review: A Guide For Your Company.

Photo Credit: susanaudrey via Compfight cc

Build on Strengths, Avoid Weaknesses

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At your next set of performance reviews, what are you going to talk about with your employees? You may discuss what goals were met, next year’s objectives, or where their performance needs improvement. But new research suggests that more than fixing flaws, managers should be concerned with building on strengths.  In a recent Forbes article, Joseph Folkman shares research that reveals that “70-80% of leaders and employees benefit more from improving what they are doing right.”

If someone on your team is a great writer but lousy at spreadsheets, the tendency is to try to help the employee improve his or her spreadsheet skills. A better practice is to hone this individual’s writing skills. People are less likely to make huge strides in something they’re bad at or hate doing, yet there is a common notion that doing more of those actions builds a more well-rounded employee. On the contrary, as Folkman says, our strengths are what make us successful. The following tips will help you learn your employees’ strengths, build on them, and ultimately reach more goals with your team.

1. Be a good listener

Performance reviews should be a dialogue, a time for managers and employees to have an honest discussion about what hinders performance and what gets the most positive results. Talk to your employees about areas where you see them struggling, as well as where they see trouble for themselves. Explore what they do that has the most impact, what they love doing, and where those intersect. Let your employees give honest feedback, and listen well — chances are they already know where their strengths lie.

Ask them to relate their feedback to examples of actions they’ve performed and successful initiatives in which they’ve participated, then do the same with your own feedback. Grounding the conversation in real examples helps illuminate the path forward.

2. Cultivate strengths

Don’t let your conversation on building strengths and boosting impact end after the formal performance reviews. Cultivating your employees’ strengths is an active process. Weekly one-on-one discussions and periodic informal feedback are the best ways to reinforce what you discussed. Work with all your employees to let their strengths shine, and provide them with the resources to utilize and enhance their abilities on a daily basis. Consider this a business strategy – the more they can relate their strengths to your goals, the more goals they’ll meet.

3. Beware the fatal flaw

This is Folkman’s single caveat in his discussion of strengths in the workplace. He defines a fatal flaw as “a competency in which you receive strong negative feedback results (and/or poor performance review results) or below average capability in an area that is mission critical to your job.” The latter portion of the definition is the most important. Everyone has flaws, and we need to accept that to work with the premise of strengths-based coaching.

A fatal flaw is different in that it prevents someone from performing their job in spite of their strengths. This idea should be approached with caution since not all flaws are fatal flaws, but Folkman does advocate addressing a fatal flaw before playing to your employees’ strengths. Beyond that, build strengths and watch as you realize more goals and achieve higher productivity!

Employees often have a well of potential that remains buried by managers who focus on working with their flaws. Instead of pursuing the ideal of a well-rounded employee, great leaders bring out their teams’ strengths and help them learn to use their talents for the good of the organization. Incorporating the idea of strengths-based coaching into your managerial style will lead to enhanced productivity and fantastic results for you and your company.

At The Crossroads: Where Instinct & Analytics Meet

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Sometimes you read a white paper and think, “That was really interesting. I DO need to think more about targeted learning plans.” And sometimes you see an infographic and suddenly realize that, of course feedback-rich technologies can better support employee engagement!

And then sometimes you read a blog post and you think about Delta Blues.

That’s what happened to me when I read Reviewsnap’s recent post, Do You Know Who Your “Top Guns” Are? I thought of Robert Johnson taking his guitar down to that fateful intersection in the deep midnight of his Mississippi. The image came to me because I realized that talent seekers are a lot like Mr. Johnson. They’re looking for a bit of magic—that special something that only happens when things come together in ways seemingly impossible at any other time or place.

Talent rarely just walks through the door out of the blue, and it’s rarely there when you go looking. But at the crossroads of instinct and analytics, you can find it: talent.

Both analytics and instincts are crucial to making sound talent-related decisions. But how do you quantify talent? And how do you translate instincts into analytics and vice versa? Believe it or not, there’s a way. It’s called a performance review.

The performance review, you say. That venerable old standard?

Venerable old standard?!? Well, that right there is the problem. Sadly, we’ve let the performance review stagnate. For most of us, it represents an obligation, not an opportunity. But this is a tragedy, and a missed opportunity beyond measure.

The performance review can be an amazingly effective tool for identifying top performers—and for nurturing and reinforcing the qualities that make these individuals so valuable. However, the post mentioned above points out:

… few employers actually bother to define what “top talent” means to them. You think it would be common practice, especially given the fact talent issues are among the most urgent for our nation’s employers. Last year, TLNT itself published research showing that HR professionals’ top three concerns are: 1) engaging and retaining employees, 2) developing leaders and managing skills gaps, and 3) recruiting the best employees.

A big part of solving all of these talent issues is knowing precisely who your top talent is and what sets them apart. Once you have clarity on these matters, you know what to look for when recruiting new talent and developing current employees.

So yes, identify your top talent. But do more than that. Define your top talent. Clarify and codify why they’re your top talent. Do so and you’ve got a roadmap for success.

Performance reviews help you focus the potential blur of subjective instinct while at the same time giving life to the lifeless anonymity of analytics.

Robert Johnson purportedly made a deal with the devil to acquire his talent. You needn’t do anything quite so extreme. You only need to see to it that successful talent management strategies become engrained in your company’s culture. Strategies such as instituting performance reviews that are meaningful to your organization and your people—from your top guns down to the rank and file. And your people practices need to be driven by insightful, thoughtful, and yes, soulful HR pros who know how to reconcile instinct and analytics in pursuit of talent. Top talent.

(About the Author: Katrina Busselle is Vice President of Client Services for fisher VISTA a marketing and media relations firm that specializes in reaching the HR marketplace.)

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How To Skip The Negative Feedback "Sandwich"

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I’ve never fully understood the logic behind the “sandwich” method of delivering performance feedback. (I’m sure you’re familiar with this concept: Open a discussion on a positive note, then insert a negative piece of news, followed by another positive.) We like to think that we’re softening the blow by offering several of bits of positive feedback around a central negative message. However, we’re doing no such thing.

Actually, this approach may be a disservice to both categories of information — each of which plays a unique and highly valuable role in shaping performance. Overall, we need to pay close attention to the “cascade” of emotions and behavior that we initiate when delivering feedback, but also be careful to retain the value of the message.

Performance Feedback: Open Dialogue

Processing negative performance feedback is quite challenging for most of us — even though on a very basic level, we realize that accepting “where to improve” is critical to our careers. While positive feedback serves to motivate and energize our work lives (we all need this on a regular basis), the “negatives” can also provide useful information about where we should direct our attention. To remain competitive, we certainly require both categories of information — and I am not debating the value of either. Rather, I’d like to open a discussion about how negative information can be presented and approached, to afford the most progress possible.

When considering negative feedback, we must acknowledge core human characteristics; including self-efficacy (the belief that individuals can actually impact their situation) and goal orientation (some individuals focus on learning, others focus on demonstrating competence, and others focus upon avoiding negative judgement). To properly deliver negative feedback, we should carefully consider and frame the delivery, so potential damage to an individual’s psyche is minimized and progress is emphasized.

Developing A Constructive Approach

There’s truly an art to presenting information about performance deficits of any kind. When managers practice the sandwich method, I fear that once the “meat” of the sandwich is delivered — the “downside” of performance — we really don’t remember much of anything that follows. (Attempting to “hide” the information doesn’t address the issues.) We can certainly do a better job of moving the conversation to more neutral ground, where performance improvement can follow. But how? Here are some ideas:

3 Behavioral Considerations

1) How humans are “wired” to perceive bad news. We are likely predisposed to pay more attention to negative information, possibly a leftover evolutionary survival mechanism. As a result, we’re likely to become hyper-focused on the negatives. This clouds our “lens.”
2) We sorely need the positives. We should all be allowed to absorb what we are doing well at work. That’s not possible when information about our successes is delivered in conjunction with information about shortcomings.
3) We “digest” slowly. It takes time to process negative information properly. Initially, when you hear information you might not not want to hear, negative thoughts can spiral, leading to responses such as panic and denial. There are stages in this process that cannot be skipped.

5 Ways To Avoid “The Sandwich”

1) Build resiliency. Performance management should never be a once a year, “live or die” event. Ultimately, it’s a continuous process. Provide positive feedback concerning small successes along the way to provide balance. This helps difficult information become easier to absorb.
2) Address self-efficacy. Some individuals have the tendency to believe they cannot impact their performance or build a needed skill set. Explore this predisposition, to encourage a more hopeful perspective.
3) Focus on learning. Research has shown that in contrast to performance goals, learning goals can increase problem solving in relation to performance problems, possibly limiting the “sting” of negative feedback. Setting the tone to “learn from failure” can prove more effective in motivating and directing behavior.
4) Never “drop a bomb.” It’s wise to address negative feedback when it is delivered. Allow enough time to help control anxiety, and at least begin to discuss a plan for improvement.
5) Support the digestion process. After sharing negative feedback, be sure to provide plenty of support. Be highly accessible as an employee works through the information and begins to take logical steps forward.

How do you present negative performance feedback? What are your “best practice” strategies? How have these strategies helped you develop others in the workplace? Share your thoughts in the comments area below.

(Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared as a LinkedIn Influencer post. It is republished with permission.)

Image Credit: Kitsa Sakurako/Flickr

How To Skip The Negative Feedback “Sandwich”

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I’ve never fully understood the logic behind the “sandwich” method of delivering performance feedback. (I’m sure you’re familiar with this concept: Open a discussion on a positive note, then insert a negative piece of news, followed by another positive.) We like to think that we’re softening the blow by offering several of bits of positive feedback around a central negative message. However, we’re doing no such thing.

Actually, this approach may be a disservice to both categories of information — each of which plays a unique and highly valuable role in shaping performance. Overall, we need to pay close attention to the “cascade” of emotions and behavior that we initiate when delivering feedback, but also be careful to retain the value of the message.

Performance Feedback: Open Dialogue

Processing negative performance feedback is quite challenging for most of us — even though on a very basic level, we realize that accepting “where to improve” is critical to our careers. While positive feedback serves to motivate and energize our work lives (we all need this on a regular basis), the “negatives” can also provide useful information about where we should direct our attention. To remain competitive, we certainly require both categories of information — and I am not debating the value of either. Rather, I’d like to open a discussion about how negative information can be presented and approached, to afford the most progress possible.

When considering negative feedback, we must acknowledge core human characteristics; including self-efficacy (the belief that individuals can actually impact their situation) and goal orientation (some individuals focus on learning, others focus on demonstrating competence, and others focus upon avoiding negative judgement). To properly deliver negative feedback, we should carefully consider and frame the delivery, so potential damage to an individual’s psyche is minimized and progress is emphasized.

Developing A Constructive Approach

There’s truly an art to presenting information about performance deficits of any kind. When managers practice the sandwich method, I fear that once the “meat” of the sandwich is delivered — the “downside” of performance — we really don’t remember much of anything that follows. (Attempting to “hide” the information doesn’t address the issues.) We can certainly do a better job of moving the conversation to more neutral ground, where performance improvement can follow. But how? Here are some ideas:

3 Behavioral Considerations

1) How humans are “wired” to perceive bad news. We are likely predisposed to pay more attention to negative information, possibly a leftover evolutionary survival mechanism. As a result, we’re likely to become hyper-focused on the negatives. This clouds our “lens.”
2) We sorely need the positives. We should all be allowed to absorb what we are doing well at work. That’s not possible when information about our successes is delivered in conjunction with information about shortcomings.
3) We “digest” slowly. It takes time to process negative information properly. Initially, when you hear information you might not not want to hear, negative thoughts can spiral, leading to responses such as panic and denial. There are stages in this process that cannot be skipped.

5 Ways To Avoid “The Sandwich”

1) Build resiliency. Performance management should never be a once a year, “live or die” event. Ultimately, it’s a continuous process. Provide positive feedback concerning small successes along the way to provide balance. This helps difficult information become easier to absorb.
2) Address self-efficacy. Some individuals have the tendency to believe they cannot impact their performance or build a needed skill set. Explore this predisposition, to encourage a more hopeful perspective.
3) Focus on learning. Research has shown that in contrast to performance goals, learning goals can increase problem solving in relation to performance problems, possibly limiting the “sting” of negative feedback. Setting the tone to “learn from failure” can prove more effective in motivating and directing behavior.
4) Never “drop a bomb.” It’s wise to address negative feedback when it is delivered. Allow enough time to help control anxiety, and at least begin to discuss a plan for improvement.
5) Support the digestion process. After sharing negative feedback, be sure to provide plenty of support. Be highly accessible as an employee works through the information and begins to take logical steps forward.

How do you present negative performance feedback? What are your “best practice” strategies? How have these strategies helped you develop others in the workplace? Share your thoughts in the comments area below.

(Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared as a LinkedIn Influencer post. It is republished with permission.)

Image Credit: Kitsa Sakurako/Flickr