Now, last week we talked about feedback and we talked about how Radical Candor is the best way to deliver feedback and how that’s all about being able to challenge directionally.
It’s being really to the point in the feedback that you’re giving, but caring personally.
If you can build a trusting relationship with the person that you are giving feedback to where both of those things are in play, trust me, you are onto a winner.
Now, I understand that giving feedback is difficult and sometimes it’s much easier to do a lovely big fluffy BS and flower it all up but actually you’re not making it easy for that person to wade through the treacle of what you’re saying and get to the point.
What I want to do today is talk about a couple of examples of where feedback has been given and I’ve got two examples. One where feedback hasn’t been given and the payoff there and the other one of where it has been given but hasn’t been done in a trusting and supportive way and has led to an unsuccessful ending.
I’ll tell you two stories, both of which are what my leadership coach shared with me. So the first one, imagine the scene, you’ve got a young lad, starts in a work environment and the boss that he’s got, you know, she’s really lovely and this young lad is lovely. He’s really caring, he’s really thoughtful, he just wants to do a great job and he’s lovely but he’s not quite getting the hang of what to do.
He’s not brilliant at doing the job but the problem is the manager really struggles giving him the feedback because he’s so lovely and she doesn’t want to be negative or she’s tried to give him bits of feedback, but he looks so utterly dishevelled when she gives him the feedback that she doesn’t want to give him this negative feedback and he’s trying his best. He can’t help it if he’s not good enough there, he’s trying his best, right?
What happens over time is this manager just makes up for where he’s incompetent in some areas, and does a little bit of extra work.
Now the problem is, that’s just putting a sticky plaster over it.
Eventually what happened in that situation is that the manager’s manager started to notice. And being a good manager, it is your job to look at how your people are managing their subordinates.
So the manager’s manager noticed and started to call out. It might be that you can say, well, you’re doing too much work and it should be passed on and you’re not delegating effectively. I’ve had it with my staff before where they say, “Do you know what, I’m just going to make up for it and I’ll do it outside of my working hours. I’ll not let it compromise my work, but I’ll work a little bit harder and do a little bit extra out of hours to help make up for that”. But that person’s lack of skills or incompetence, that’s not helping anybody either.
As a manager, I look at it, think, well, I’m asking too much of you, you’re doing too many hours, you’re having to work out of hours. Or, if you are prepared to work that hard, I want you working at this level, not this level. I pay this guy to work at this level.
What happened in that situation is actually the manager stepped in and took action and basically said, “Well, you’re not managing that person effectively. We’re not getting out of that person what the business needs. So they’ve got to go, you’ve got to hire somebody more competent”.
Now had the manager been able to really effectively deliver feedback and give that person feedback, as hard as it would be to make them better at their job, the guy wouldn’t have lost his job.
And that manager, when realised what she’d done, she was utterly destroyed because her actions, trying to do what she thought was nice and make up for his incompetence by just doing the job for him, actually cost him his job. If she’d just been able to give him the feedback, she would have made him better at his job and he wouldn’t have lost his job.
So, what I want you to think about is – and you will all have situations like this in your working career where you’ve got people who aren’t quite performing at their best and they aren’t really good enough – I want you to think about the fact that you are not helping them if you are just making up for their incompetencies.
You need to help them, you need to give them feedback and help them to improve and get better. And, if they don’t improve and get better, then it’s time to move on and replace them, but at least you will sleep at night knowing you did everything that you could to try and make that person be the best that they could be.
That’s the first example of where people avoid giving feedback because they’re trying to be nice because it’s difficult to do. The second example is a woman who was operating at a really, really high level at a big Silicon Valley company and she just joined the board of directors for a big firm.
Within the first month, she did a big presentation at board level. She did the presentation and afterwards, one of her peers, and I will add it was a male peer, took her to one side afterwards and said, “Really great presentation. Did you realise that every time you’re thinking, you pause a little bit before you say the next sentence?”.
And she said “Oh yeah, I do, yeah. I’ve been given that feedback before”. And it turns out over her whole career, she’s actually been given that feedback quite a few times but she knew she was really good at her job. She knew she delivered really effectively, hence she got promoted and promoted and was now on the board of directors at this big Silicon Valley company.
She assumed when everybody was giving her feedback, they were just trying to find fault with her because they were jealous of her because of how well she was doing and how she was getting promoted and moving up through the ranks.
This guy actually took her to one side and said “It’s such a shame because you’re so unbelievable at how you deliver this content. It’s just that one little thing that holds you back. And actually, every time you hesitate, it makes us in the room think, does she really know her stuff here? Or is she a little bit unsure because she’s hesitating”? He said, “Actually a little bit of coaching, we could easily lose that”.
So he helped her manage and organise some professional coaching to just coach that out of her so that she could deliver a lot better.
She said in a 20 year career, people had given her that same feedback over and over, but she never believed that they actually cared. She thought they were just jealous of her. It wasn’t until somebody showed her that they cared about her as an individual. They weren’t jealous of her and they weren’t feeling threatened by her. They genuinely had positive intent and wanted her to succeed.
They’d given her this feedback in a really positive, supporting way, and then talked about how they could help her improve.
That was revolutionary. She went on, she had the coaching and she became even better at what she did.
It’s a brilliant example to learn from how when you give somebody feedback, make a point of explaining the why. Make the point of showing that person you really care about them and you’re giving them this so that they can get better in their career, not for any other reason.
People always second guess, especially strangers or people they haven’t worked with a lot, why are you giving me this feedback? So if you are giving feedback, just look at what the motive is, what the why is. And if that person really does have positive intent for you, make sure you listen.