I LOVE performance reviews. In a previous job, there was no scheduled performance review process so every year on my hire date, I would sit my boss down and ask for feedback. He hated it, I loved it. I always figured that you can’t improve if you don’t know what direction you are heading or what you need to work on. You can’t get to someone else’s level of success without finding out what you need to do to get there or what you are doing that is holding you back.
However, I am uncomfortable with giving feedback to others and their reception of it. It could be that I am a wuss and afraid of hurting someone. Or it could also be that I know how flawed I am as a person. How can I give feedback when I can literally write a list of all the things that I have done wrong?
But I run into the concept of open and honest feedback again and again when reading books about leadership and team building. And if I reflect on the people that I trust the most, they are the ones that give me clear and open feedback. I know where I stand. However these are also the same people that I have a good enough relationship with that I know they are doing it for my own good or the good of the team. Their sole intention is to help me or help the team achieve its goal. It’s not just to point out my flaws for fun or to make a point.
“The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni touches on this subject of feedback and accountability when making a good team. I pulled out some quotes that emphasize these points.
” The more comfortable a leader is holding people on a team accountable, the less likely she is to be asked to do so.” Goodness, isn’t this the truth! We see this in any team we have been done. We as humans often rise to the expectations of our team or our leader don’t we! It is a natural tendency that we talked about in the Four Tendency category called “Obliger”. These people know that they respond to external demands versus internal demands. Why do you think accountability groups are so important for Weight Watchers, AA, or even our education system? The more often step into the uncomfortable space of giving feedback, the less often we have to do it because we start to know what the leader expects.
“To hold someone accountable is to care about them enough to risk having them blame you for pointing out their deficiencies.” Doesn’t this make sense. We can’t keep watching someone fail and fail again and not try to help them. This is how we end up watching someone completely fall on their face in American Idol. No one in their life was able to give them open and honest feedback about their singing abilities until the judges do on that show. And then the contestant gets rip roaring mad at the judges.
I think if we lay the foundation down that we are giving this feedback for the individual’s best interest AND we intend to help them overcome the obstacle AND we keep the feedback private, the reception on the feedback is different.
“There is nothing noble about withholding information that can help an employee improve.” Don’t make the feedback about you, make it about the other person. What do they need to succeed? What do they need to get to the next level? Be willing to enter into that uncomfortable spot in order to help someone that you care about as a person.
Of course, this is often a two way street. If we expect people to be receptive to feedback, we need to be open to feedback as well. We can’t get angry or defensive, but open and receptive. The hardest part is often times mirroring what we want to see in others.
What do you think?
Pigs and People 