The Single Most Important Characteristic of Good Feedback
A simple, yet powerful, way to motivate employees.
Are annual employee reviews helpful for anyone?
More often than not, the answer is a big N-O.
It’s as if the requirement for annual reviews magically appeared on a list of company commandments — and we’ve all done them ever since, without ever stopping to question whether they had any real value.
Regardless, you may be required do annual reviews for your employees. And if you do, you should strive to make them as worthwhile as possible.
But if you truly care about employee development and creating a positive workplace, you won’t confine your compliments and criticisms to those annual reviews.
Instead, you’ll give regular, consistent, timely feedback.
Why timely feedback is critical
You should consider delaying feedback only when either you or your employee is angry. In that case, wait until emotions have cooled a bit before you meet so you’ll be able to have a more objective, productive conversation.
In all other cases, feedback is best given immediately. Here are a few reasons why:
It prevents miscommunications
Let’s say an employee does fantastic design work, but they often miss deadlines. If you don’t talk to them about a missed deadline as soon as it’s happened, they could assume — quite reasonably — that hitting milestones is not important to you.
Then, when you confront them with their delays in an annual review, they’ll feel blindsided — or at least annoyed that you didn’t make your expectations clear.
It makes improvement easier
Continuing with the “missed deadlines” example, let’s say you bring up the delay with your employee as soon as they finish their work.
With the project fresh in their mind, they are far more likely to remember why it was late and be able to figure out ways to prevent delays in the future.
On the other hand, if you wait, neither of you is going to remember exactly what caused the project to go off the rails. And if you can’t remember the “whys” of a problem, it’s far more difficult to correct.
It builds rapport
When you take the time to give employees prompt, specific feedback about their work, it shows that you value their contributions and care about their ideas.
What do I mean? Let’s look at two different scenarios.
Scenario 1: Your team just completed a project, and the client has signed off. You’re ready to move on. You say to your team, “Great job. Here’s what’s next…”
Scenario 2: The situation, is the same, but instead you say, “The client was thrilled with their website. The navigation is much more intuitive than the old version. And they are starting to see more conversions. However, they were disappointed that we delivered it two weeks later than we estimated. What can we do to improve next time?”
In scenario 1, the “great job” feels like a pacifier — like you see your employees as mere cogs in the corporate wheel.
Contrast that with scenario 2, where you’ve given them some well-deserved, specific praise, acknowledged problems, and solicited their opinions on how to improve. If you were given that type of feedback, wouldn’t you feel better about your work — and about your boss?
How to give better feedback
Besides making sure your feedback is timely, what else can you do to make sure it’s effective? Here are three ideas:
1. Be specific
Much like when you argue with your spouse, telling an employee that they “always” or “never” do something isn’t effective, unless you want to make them defensive. I’ll assume that’s not your goal.
It’s much better to be specific. For example, rather than saying, “your presentations are weak,” try, “in your presentation yesterday, your conclusions were sound, but it would have been much more effective if you would have added a few more examples and data points.”
Don’t make your employees guess what they need to do to improve. That will just cause frustration on both sides.
2. Avoid the ‘compliment sandwich’
You’ve undoubtedly heard of the ‘compliment sandwich’ technique of bookending criticisms with praise. You may have even used it yourself or had it used on you.
How did that go?
In my experience, it’s a terrible technique. Because it’s so familiar, the praise comes off as insincere, while the meaty middle gets lost.
Instead, try being direct. Even the most sensitive of us can take constructive criticism when it’s delivered with empathy.
3. Ask for input
When you give feedback to an employee, don’t turn it into a lecture. Make sure they have a chance to voice their opinions.
Treat each feedback session as a learning opportunity — a chance to discover what makes your employees tick and get their ideas for improving your team’s work. After all, you don’t have all the answers, do you?
Even if you don’t implement all of their ideas, the mere fact that you take the time to consider them and listen will be far more motivating than a perfunctory bit of praise.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts — how can managers give more effective feedback to their employees?
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