Step 6 for Employees Providing Feedback to a Manager: Phrases to use during the feedback conversation
This is the last in a series of articles designed to help you give feedback to your manager. In the previous articles, we discussed the previous steps:
1. Setting up a performance log
2. Giving positive reinforcement of the behaviors you believe are good
3. Contracting with your manager to give feedback on improvement
4. Previewing the conversation with HR
5. Preparing for giving the feedback.
Yes, it’s a lot of work to get to this point. But hopefully you’ve discovered that the very act of doing the previous steps will a) Actually solve problems you’re experiencing already and b) keep you focused on what areas you’d like to give feedback.
Today, I’ll provide you some phrases to help you perform the feedback discussion on behaviors you’d like to change in your boss.
1. The setup
Here you want to ease into the conversation with your boss based on your preparation. The more you are focused on the intent (provide feedback) and result (better results), the better the setup will be:
“I’d like to provide some feedback to you in regards to what happened last week. Is this a good time?”
2. The context Read more
Step 5 for Employees Providing Feedback to a Manager: Identifying what the feedback is and when to give the feedback
On to step 5 of giving feedback to your manager: Identifying the feedback and doing the final preparation for the feedback! If you want to give feedback to a manager, you have to make sure you have engaged in step 1 (prepare and start a log) , step 2 (give positive feedback on the behaviors you do like), step 3 (set up a contract for when the manager wants feedback) and step 4 (talk to HR). If not, you are taking some risks that your feedback may backfire. That is, your manager could be resistant to the feedback, not trust your feedback, could directly or indirectly engage in recrimination over time.
Yes, giving feedback to your manager is a risk, and no, it’s not fair that managers could engage in some bad behaviors solely on you trying to give them feedback! The emerging field of Management Design needs to address this design flaw of Managers engaging in immature and recriminating behaviors based on an employee trying to help the manager improve, but until then, here’s an approach to take to get that much needed feedback to your manager.
OK, assuming you have a log of observations of behavior, you have already started giving positive feedback where it is merited, and have contracted for that moment and you have discussed your plans to talk with your boss with HR, where you might want to give corrective feedback, here are some options for your next move:
1. Analyze your log to make sure that you know which feedback you’d like to prioritize.
