Workplace Wellbeing: Effective feedback gets best results
Regular constructive feedback is crucial for growth in workplaces
Constant negative feedback almost crushed Lucy O’Reilly’s confidence. When she returned to the workplace in 2011 after taking time out to raise her three children, the now 52-year-old found herself working for someone who micromanaged their employees’ every move.
“As a woman in my 40s returning to work, I was nervous but also confident of my abilities, because I’d kept myself engaged while being a stay-at-home mum,” says O’Reilly.
“My new job involved writing emails and newsletters for thousands of employees worldwide which was well within my comfort zone as I’d previously worked in international events management and marketing.”
However, her self-belief was soon eroded by her manager double-checking all her work and harshly criticising every mistake. “The constant scrutiny made me doubt my abilities,” she says. “I eventually started thinking I was bound to be wrong no matter what I did.”
Many organisations struggle with giving effective feedback, according to Dr Mary Collins, a chartered workplace psychologist at the RCSI Centre for Positive Health Sciences.
“People don’t know how to have these difficult conversations,” she says.
“Number one: they don’t know how to give feedback constructively so that it lands the way they want it to. And number two: even though studies show that people want feedback, they don’t always react well when it’s negative. This is especially true of younger people.”
She suggests several reasons for this. “Many of today’s young people have had a highly supportive and structured upbringing,” she says.
“Their helicopter parents have always hovered in the background and the world they’ve grown up in is one where everyone gets a trophy, not just those who came first, second and third. They are also used to the instant gratification of social media, where they get positive reinforcement on a regular basis in the form of likes. As a result, they can lack the resilience to deal with robust feedback.”
This is bad news for organisations because regular constructive feedback is crucial for growth.
“Peter Senge, the expert in organisational learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management in America, says that an organisation’s only sustainable advantage is its ability to learn faster than the competition,” says Collins. “To have that advantage, there has to be feedback.”
Patricia Byron is an associate lecturer in leadership and management at UCD who agrees that it’s important to master the art of feedback. “It’s essential for maintaining employee motivation, development correction and clarifying goals,” she says.
But it is tricky. The biggest mistake that people make when giving feedback is to do what O’Reilly’s boss did and focus only on the negative.
“That doesn’t motivate people or help them develop,” she says. “Instead it triggers a stress response in the brain, which increases anxiety and shuts off people’s ability to absorb what you are saying. They miss the opportunity to understand how to rectify their mistake or improve their performance.”
In an attempt to avoid this, managers have been using a technique known as the ‘feedback sandwich’. This involves opening the conversation with positive feedback, following that with the more pertinent critical comment, and bookending the conversation with another slice of positivity.
But Byron doesn’t think this works either: “We think we’re doing great things by starting and ending in a positive and giving the bad news in the middle but we’re actually negating the positives."
This is because us humans have an inbuilt negativity bias. “It’s like Teflon and Velcro,” says Collins. “If you tell me five things I did well and one I didn’t, the positive ones will slide off like Teflon while the negative ones will stick like Velcro.”
A technique known as the feed forward approach can be more effective.
“It’s about taking a future focused constructive approach to the message you want to give,” says Collins. “Rather than focusing on the mistakes of the past, looking to the future can take the heat out of feedback.”
It works by asking employees what they would do differently next time. “This gives them a sense of ownership and responsibility over their actions and allows them to come to their own realisations,” says Collins. “If there are gaps in their awareness or understanding, that’s where the feedback around future improvement can be given.”
Byron gives an example. “Say someone hasn’t met their target,” she says. “Rather than asking why this happened and focusing on the past, their manager might ask them what supports they need to hit their target in the next quarter.”
There are other do’s and don’ts when it comes to giving effective feedback.
Collins has three. “One is to always focus on the behaviour and not the person,” she says. “Clearly describe the specific behaviour without criticising someone personally. For instance, rather than telling someone off for always being late, say that you’ve noticed that they often run late and ask them if there’s anything that can be done about it.”
Another tip is to time your feedback carefully as people need to be in the right frame of mind to receive it.
“Don’t give feedback when people are upset or immediately after a negative incident,” says Collins.
Her third recommendation is to deliver feedback regularly and to amplify the positives.
“Schedule regular feedback meetings in the diary, not just when there’s a problem to be addressed,” she says. “That way, you’ll have many opportunities to acknowledge when people are doing well and will be able to give them positive feedback accordingly. That motivates and encourages people and enables them to handle the more constructive feedback when it comes their way.”
Byron has three tips of her own. She advises giving feedback face to face. “Tone and empathy can be missed online, leading to misinterpretation, defensiveness and demotivation,” she says.
Her second piece of advice is to only mention situations you have observed, not those you have heard about from others.
“And thirdly, make sure the person receiving the feedback can do something with it,” she says. “There’s nothing worse than feedback that gives people no clue how to improve. They should have actionable opportunities for development.”
The example she gives is of someone who needs to improve their presentation skills. Rather than baldly stating that fact, it would be far better to tell that person to focus on making eye contact with their audience or speaking more slowly.
Despite our reluctance to give or receive it, we can all benefit from a workplace culture that encourages constructive feedback. “When we receive that kind of feedback on an ongoing basis, it helps to build our confidence and enhance our skills,” says Collins.
Even O’Reilly agrees with this, despite the toll negative impact had on her. “I think feedback is essential to help identify areas that require improvement and to provide us with methods to develop skills and competencies,” she says.
“It also helps us feel valued in an organisation as someone is paying attention to us and caring about our work and commitment. Honest and constructive feedback also creates an environment where we feel safe to share ideas, concerns and challenges.”
When O’Reilly’s contract came to an end, rather than looking for another job, she decided to set up her own business, Designs for Growth.
“I now have to give feedback to my clients and when I do, I always remember to avoid making it personal or implying that they are wrong or incompetent simply because there is room for improvement,” she says. “My manager never did that, and it had such a negative effect on me, undermining my confidence and affecting my performance.”
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