How to ask for feedback from your employees on your management skills (part 2)
This is the second part of a three part series on how managers can ask for feedback on how they manage. Managers get spotty feedback on how they manage, and employees are perhaps the best source of feedback, but it can be tricky. In my previous article, I outlined how the manager can set up the conversation, in today’s article I dive deeper into the actual feedback conversation initiated by the employee. Chin up and get ready for the feedback!
1. Don’t actually recriminate
The employee gives you feedback and you don’t agree. This is kind of an obvious point, but if you don’t like what the employee says, or don’t agree with it, you now have to follow your own rules and not react negatively to what the employee has to say. Don’t be surprised, either. You asked for it, now you have to take it. Swallow your pride, no matter how much you disagree or didn’t want to hear what you just asked to hear. All of your other interactions and discussions have to be separated from this feedback. The better you can do this, the more you will create trust on your team.
2. Avoid debates
When asking for feedback, that’s what you get, feedback. If you then start to try to convince the employee that your actions are correct, and either debate or react as though the employee is wrong, you’ve just trained the employee to not give you feedback, and perhaps not share anything with you. You asked for the feedback, now take it. You don’t have to do anything differently based on the feedback if you don’t agree with it. You should take it into account, and allow this other opinion improve your decisions and approach.
How to ask for feedback from your employees on your management skills (part 1)
I’ve been exploring how managers receive feedback on their management skills. The situation is not good, because most channels of feedback are not specific, not immediate, and the quality of the feedback is low or not related to management skills. With no feedback on how they’re doing as a manager, it makes sense that many managers struggle and do more harm than good!
However, as explored in the previous article, the managers’ employees may be a resource for providing feedback that is specific, immediate, and – potentially – of good quality. It takes work to get this set up, and for this to be successful. This is the first in a three part series on how managers can ask for feedback on how they manage. Today’s theme: Getting ready.
How about managers ask for feedback from their employees?
In my previous article, I explored the channels that are most likely to provide specific and immediate feedback to managers on how they manage. The most common channels (like relying on your boss’s boss) are not reliably effective, while the channel with the highest likelihood of success is to receive feedback directly from employees. So why don’t managers get feedback from their employees?
Many managers are not good at being a manager, and the ones who suffer most directly from poor management practices are the employees. Similarly, employees are also the ones who are most likely to observe the behaviors of the boss, and have the ability to identify different ways for the boss to behave that would help the team perform better (i.e., “Instead of yelling, I would like it if you would speak to me in a calm voice.”) Read more
An example of tracking positive performance and praise of an employee in an employee performance log
A great manager needs to know the good stuff that is happening on the team. What you track shouldn’t be only areas you’d like to correct. In fact, it should be mostly positive! People come to work and try to get good things done all the time. If the manager doesn’t know what those things are, then the manager is missing lots of opportunities to provide thanks and praise. Also, the manager is going to quickly get a reputation for ignoring good work.
I advocate for creating an employee performance log to track employee behaviors. In previous articles, I provide a beginner version, an intermediate version, and an advanced version. While such a log can and should be used for tracking corrective feedback and potential issues with an employee (an example is provided here), a great manager should exert a great amount of energy identifying and understanding the great behaviors that are observed on the job, and the impact the performance of the team.
So today I provide an example of how this can be done on the employee performance log – a positive example!
An example of how to use a log to track performance of an employee
In previous entries of this blog, I advocate for managers to use a log to track performance incidents of notes. I provide a beginner version, an intermediate version, and an advanced version. This is a log that can be kept in a simple spreadsheet, and has many benefits to help you become a better manager – namely – you can remember what was going on with various people on your team! Other benefits and a discussion of the potential drawbacks and pitfalls are found here.
In today’s post, I provide an example for how to use the performance log. First, I don’t advocate using the log for everything that goes on with each of your employees. This is too much work and likely will create a lot of noise for what would have been a useful tool. Instead, I advocate to use it only for performance issues that you want to track and have an impact if the behavior changes. The focus in this article is on negative behaviors that need to be corrected, but a performance log should also be used for positive behaviors that need to be reinforced.
Here’s the scenario:
Trevor has been observed sleeping during meetings. In some instances, meeting participants wake him up, and in other incidents they just started throwing office supplies at his head. This hasn’t happened all the time, but he has been observed nodding off in other situations, and his previous boss from a year ago has mentioned it to you, in a joking manner. People have told you that he has said that he’s stayed out too late a few times lately. Read more
Examples of when to offer thanks and when to offer praise
Here are some thoughts on when to thank your employees and when to praise your employees:
Thanks is connected to acknowledgement of work being done
You thank your employees when they do something that is within the regular job duties, and it marks some delivered item by the employee.
The threshold for earning thanks can be very, very low. Showing up to a meeting can earn thanks. An email that responds to your question can earn thanks. An employee who followed up on something for you can earns thanks. An employee who is simply does their job – and the moment they finish the part of the job they worked on – can earn thanks. Someone completing a car repair. That can earn a “Thank you for completing that repair” from the manager. Someone returning from a sales call. That can earn a “Thank your for doing that sales call.”
When you become a manager, expect to be giving a lot of “Thanks” to your employees. Unless it is already obvious what you are thanking them for, you will want to specify what you are thanking your employee for:
“Thanks for completing that job.”
“Thanks for your input.”
“Thanks for getting here on time.”
Getting started on a performance log – stick with the praise
’ve recently posted several articles providing guidance on how managers can keep a performance log of their employees. You can either go beginner level (start tracking behaviors to check for trends and impact), intermediate level (track your performance feedback), and advanced level (track the change in behavior and impact after the feedback).
But how do you get started? Here’s an easy tip: Focus on documenting the behaviors that you like and praise.
Let’s not dwell on that negative stuff right now. Instead, seek out and identify the stuff that your employees are doing well, and be sure to praise the employee directly for this. Praise is quickly given and easily performed. It is cheap and it is well-received. Now, ideally, you don’t just say, “good job” or “I like that.” You have to say why it is a good job, and, if possible, what the impact is. And it still needs to use behavior-based language.
But it is also easily forgotten!
So after you perform the praise, stay on top of your game and document it in your performance log. Here are some good things that can happen:
Important fields that an employee performance log should contain – Advanced Level
The Manager by Design blog advocate that people managers should keep some sort of log, easily created in a spreadsheet, that tracks the behaviors and performance of their employees. I provide a few reasons to do so here. In my previous posts, I provided the “beginner” and “intermediate” fields that ought to be in the log. These beginner-level fields focus on documenting the specific behavior using behavior-based language and the intermediate fields focus on providing performance feedback. Here are the fields:
| Item num-ber | Date | Name | Title | Con-text | Ob-served behavior | Pre-ferred behavior | Impact of ob-served behavior | Feed-back pro-vided | Feed-back date | Actions agreed to by employee | Actions agreed to by manager |
| 1 | |||||||||||
| 2 | |||||||||||
| 3 |
In today’s post, I provide additional columns that can be added to your employee performance log to further increase the usefulness and effectiveness of creating and managing such a log. Consider these the “advanced level” fields. So in addition to the fields above, here are the next set of recommended columns for your employee performance log: Read more
Important fields that an employee performance log should contain – Intermediate Level
The Manager by Designsm blog advocates that people managers should keep some sort of log, easily created in a spreadsheet, that tracks the behaviors and performance of their employees. I provide a few reasons to do so here. In my previous post, I provide the initial fields that get you started in the log. These beginner-level fields focus on documenting the specific behavior using behavior-based language. Here they are:
| Item num-ber | Date | Name | Title | Context | Observed behavior | Preferred Behavior |
| 1 |
In today’s post, I provide additional columns that should be added to your employee performance log to increase the usefulness and effectiveness of creating and managing such a log. Consider these the “intermediate level” fields. So in addition to the fields above, here are the next set of recommended columns for your employee performance log:
Helpful tip for managers: Keep a performance log
Here’s something I rarely observe managers do, but is immanently useful and helpful: Keep a log of the employee’s behaviors and performance.
Here are a few reasons why it is useful:
1) It will help you remember all the stuff that happens over the course of the year
A lot of stuff happens of the course of the year, and it is hard to remember all of the details about what happened, what you said, what the employee did, and what were the results. A week after an event, it’s easy to forget that something ever happened. And when the situation is complex, it’s even harder to remember. If you have a team larger than three people, which describes most managers, this is especially useful.
