Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash
When you are giving feedback and if you want your feedback to work, your mindset is key.
Three mindsets to avoid when giving feedback:
Script Will Save Me: Having a script means rehearsing key lines before you share feedback. Finding the perfect words and practicing perfect responses.
Our memories freeze up when we’re anxious, and if you are about to tell someone his work is of low quality or his tone is condescending, you might be anxious.
When you’re more focussed on delivering your lines, then you are less invested in listening. You’re trying to remember how to say the thing and “Did I say that right?”, but not listening to what others are saying.
Siding With The Problem: Sharing the problem with the employee but not providing any specific examples, or coaching on how to fix the problem.
E.g., Sharing that the employee is less “Productive” and asking them to improve without being on the side of the employee.
“She’s A Little” Mindset: Assuming that the employee can’t or won’t change.
Labeling people such as “He is just stubborn”, “She is little aggressive”, “He is lazy”. This is fixed mindset that you believe that someone’s basic qualities, their strengths and weakness, are fixed traits. Avoid “You are” statements.
Fundamental Attribution Error: When we’re explaining someone else’s bad behavior, we blame it on a quality that’s intrinsic to that person. But if we’re explaining our own bad behavior, we blame it on the circumstances.
We especially make this error when we’re evaluating a member of an out-group (race, gender, age etc different from yourself) vs in-group. For members of out-group you tend to believe that the behaviors that bother you are integral to who that person is, not behaviors that are readily changed.
The “Right” Mindset
Growth Mindset: You believe that their strengths can be developed and nurtured over time. How an employee shows up at work can change based on the energy the employee puts into it. The employee can grow.
Specify both behaviors and circumstances. Share how they come across in a certain situation (e.g., during meetings), the impact they’re having, or the impression they’re making, not who they are.
E.g., “When we are doing status updates today, I noticed you had your arms cross and shared only a sentence or two, where as everyone else talked at length. You come across as standoffish at times and I fear other people might be getting a wrong impression”.
We need to believe people can change. We need to give them a chance to make a choice about how they show up at work.
Siding with the Employee:
Understand their goals: This could help you see what they’re doing or not doing is standing in their way. You can use their goals as motivation to course correct unwanted behaviors. It will also give you perspective on why an employee displaying a certain behavior.
How other person sees the situation: After sharing the feedback, It’s important to pause and listen on how employee perceives the situation and what happened from their point of view.
Solve the problem together: Communicate that you’re on their side, what they do matters to you and you have high expectations of them.