Critical Feedback Part 2: For the Right Reasons
For the Right Reasons: Motivation
Everyone assumes their own best intentions. I get it: outside of Disney movies, no one wakes up in the morning thinking they’re the villain! But good critical feedback requires self-awareness and an understanding of why you’re bringing up this topic with this person at this moment. Motivation matters. People can smell selfishness, laziness and annoyance and any, or all, of those undermine your message before you even start talking.
Giving someone feedback can sometimes feel like butting heads with them. You’re trying to affect change. They’re likely resistant to change— or even being told that they’re wrong and that they need to change! But you can push through it with the right tools.
Be authentic and transparent with your motivation. Be self-aware about it. Own your motivation—because the other person in the conversation is likely to figure it out pretty quick.
Motivation, broadly, falls into a few categories:
I’m Annoyed I Have to Deal With This
Is this seriously your issue??
Every people manager, at some point, has asked another, more experienced, people manager, When do I get to stop dealing with immature people? Don’t they know this isn’t high school?? And the more experienced people manager laughs and says, I’ll let you know when it happens.
If you think I’m joking, go talk to someone who’s been in people management for 5+ years. 10+. 25+. I’m not exaggerating.
Part of people management is dealing with “dumb” issues and, unfortunately, you have to deal with them with grace and maturity, even, and maybe especially, because they are dumb issues.
Real example dumb issues:
Two grown adults who don’t like each other and therefore do not acknowledge the other exists, despite sharing a cube wall.
Person complains about the other person chewing too loudly.
Person who knocks on the stall door in the bathroom, repeatedly, because they prefer one stall and someone else is “taking it”.
Person who changes chairs with another person — without asking.
Person who changes keyboards with another person – without asking.
Person who (sub/consciously) feels their opinion is always the most important and therefore talks over everyone else at every opportunity.
Person who “borrows” iphone cables from everyone.
Person who tells others that they think another team member smells.
Person who tells others that they’re smarter than everyone else.
Person who changes computer monitors with another person — without asking.
So glad I studied and worked hard and really applied myself to learning a field and how to manage people so I could be a junior high hall monitor!
The first few times I had to deal with these types of issues I was… not good at it. My annoyance showed through and I struggled to take this as anything other than a waste of everyone’s time and self-respect. It made for ineffective conversations and meant that I had to deal with the same situation a couple weeks later because I had not actually dealt with it the first time.
Annoyance is a bad motivator. If you’re dealing with a situation from a place of annoyance, it will come across and it shuts down the other persons’ ability to hear and internalize the message.
Part of people management is dealing with the high school drama bs that some people bring to the table. It just is. Accept it, bury the annoyance and actually deal with the issue and hope you’ve put it to bed.
I’ve Been Told I Need To Deal With This
This is related to Annoyance, but it is a special subset. I think of this in terms of like my boss coming to me and saying, Nick, Johnny Suckbag is sending rude emails to people. You need to deal with that.
If that doesn’t start the conversation off from a place of annoyance, I don’t know what will!
The motivation for the conversation comes from someone else telling you to handle a situation. You start off from second hand information and second hand motivation. And you probably have a clock on how long you have until this is going to explode.
“You can feel your feelings, but other people get to feel theirs, too.”
The first stage is to understand the motivation of the person who told you to deal with it. In this instance—rude emails to another team—check in with the other team. Get some of the emails forwarded to you. Read them. Make yourself aware of what is driving this landing on your lap. Make that motivation your own: one of my team members was being rude to other people in the company? Not acceptable!
And then deal with it. Professionally. Calmly. The way you would deal with anything else.
Do not let your annoyance show and do not kick the motivation onto someone else. This is doubly true if you disagree with the person who told/asked you to deal with it as that will undermine you, them and the message. If this is the conversation:
Hey, Johnny Suckbag, I thought your emails were fine but the Boss Lady from TeamA is saying I’ve gotta deal with this so we need to have a <air quotes> conversation about your <air quotes> email tone.
Is that person going to change? Is that person going to think they did anything wrong? Or are they going to repeat that behavior? You bet! And they probably lost respect for that team and you in the process! Lose, lose, lose!
And at the end of the day, even if you disagree with the assessment (e.g. I didn’t think the emails were rude) you have to accept that the recipient of that email thought they were rude, and that they thought they were rude enough to escalate the issue. You can feel your feelings, but other people get to feel theirs, too, and you have to respect that they may feel differently than you. This is easy to deal with where you do not undermine the message or your disagreement.
Hey, Johnny Suckbag, TeamA reached out about your emails over the weekend. I get that you were frustrated that they messed something up, but your tone and professionalism weren’t acceptable and they came to me because some of their team members are upset and thought you were rude. They’re working to fix the issue. I need you to fix your tone and apologize to them—they didn’t intentionally screw something up and they don’t deserve that kind of treatment.
That person has a solid opportunity to grow and get better. You get the point across without it being and undermining non-apology apology, a la, I’m sorry you felt like I insulted you. You made sure they understood the situation and you’ve dealt with it.
I Need You To Do This
Where Motivation Meets Self-Interest
I Need You To Do This – For You
The least selfish of all motivations, and one of the most challenging. Telling someone they need to correct a behavior, change their attitude or do something difficult is rarely welcomed. Telling them they need to do it for themselves comes across as paternalistic and potentially really condescending.
And it is paternalistic/maternalistic. You’re telling them you know better than them and that you need them to do something for themselves! Don’t shy away from that. People managers and reports have a power imbalance—one literally reports to the other in a hierarchical structure—and you’re trying to help them. Don’t worry if it will come across as paternalistic – know that it will.
But balance that out by being authentic an honest with them: I’m doing this because I care and I want you to be more effective.
Some people will shut down with this type of message. If you don’t have a good relationship, if they don’t trust you, if they don’t respect you or if you make this condescending, they are not going to hear you, much less internalize your message. You have to know where you stand with them—and them with you—for this kind of message to resonate.
The best way to combat the paternalistic and/or condescension is to show someone else their self-interest. It can be hard to accept that someone legitimately wants what they think is best for you. But giving them a direct path to something they want? Easy to understand and internalize. I care and I want you to be more effective—and if you want to <select one> then this is a really good way to achieve that.
Choices:
Make your life easier
Not deal with blowback
Have a better work/life balance
Do more of that thing you love
Understand that there is a section of employees within every industry and country that fundamentally does not trust “management” and cannot believe that their manager has their best interest at heart, or anything close to their best interest. You (the manager) can’t fix that. Cool: you do you.
And if you don’t think that kind of message motivation will resonate:
I Need You To Do This – For Me/The Team
Put your own self-interest on display.
People managers are judged on the output, retention and growth of their teams. When your team succeeds, you succeed. When they fail, you fail.
Self-interest is a motivation that bizarrely generates trust because it is universally understood.
When you ask someone to do something because it makes the team look good, you are saying: please do this because it makes us look good—and by extension me.
When you ask someone to not do something because it makes the team look bad, you are saying: please stop doing this because it makes us look bad—and by extension me.
Manager self-interest is fine—in small doses. If you’re asking people to do things that help them and you can express the needed change in those terms and they make those changes, then great! But unbridled self-interest is a helluva drug and trying to get someone (yourself included) off that drug is hard. If you exclusively motivate change through self-interest and you then need someone to do something in the interest of the team? Good luck.
Some Quick Don’t’s
Don’t Cajole and Don’t Yell/Raise Your Voice
You’re not their parent. If you have to cajole someone to get things done, and you’ve had to do this for a while and they’re still not responding, listening or changing their behavior? The conversation you need to have isn’t about motivation or critical feedback: it is about separation.
Yelling is also a very poor approach. You’re not on a basketball court or a soccer pitch or a football field. Yelling accomplishes nothing good—other than maybe making you feel like you were able to vent—and it undermines your ability to engage and motivate someone.
New managers, especially younger ones, think back to coaches they had playing sports in high school and college. I get it. Resist this urge. People do not positively respond to yelling.
Next Week: At the Right Time