Giving Feedback

Most managers will enthusiastically give their employees positive feedback but often avoid or delay giving negative feedback, or substantially distort it, for fear of provoking a defensive reaction. However, improving employees' performance depends on balanced and considered feedback.

Providing regular feedback to your employees will improve their performance. This is because:

• Feedback tells the person how well they are progressing toward those goals. Positive feedback gives reinforcement, while constructive negative feedback can result in increased effort.
• The content of the feedback will suggest ways that the person can improve their performance.
• Providing feedback demonstrates to a person that you care about how they are doing.

As a rule positive feedback is usually accepted readily, while negative feedback often meets resistance. When preparing to deliver negative feedback, first make sure you are aware of any conflict that could arise and think about how to deal with it. Ensure that negative feedback comes from a credible source, that it is objective, and that it is supported by hard data such as quantitative performance indicators and specific examples.

ACTION POINT: Provide feedback, positive and negative as needed to improve your teams performance.