As we slowly make our way through the remaining weeks of the year, many organizations are now shifting their focus to an exercise that is often met with disdain and apprehension – the annual performance review. Regardless of whether you’re on the receiving or giving end, most of us tend to view these feedback exercises as unconstructive or a waste of time, in large part because we approach the conversation from the wrong vantage point. Participating at a recent awards gala for one of the regional high schools helped to not only shed some light on this issue, but also on how leaders can make the act of giving feedback to others more instructive and beneficial.

I was invited by the school principal to give a speech and help present awards as part of a ceremony to recognize students who had maintained a high academic standing throughout the previous school year. Although I was honoured and delighted to take part, I have to admit that I did feel some hesitation because I wasn’t an active member of this community when these students achieved these accomplishments. As such, I felt that any recognition on my part of their efforts wouldn’t exactly carry much weight because of that lack of connection.

So I decided to take another approach to my involvement where I used my role in this ceremony to serve as a source of encouragement and support for how these students could build on and attain a similar achievement over the course of the current academic year.

Following the ceremony, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from both the parents and the students of how much they appreciated my participation, and in particular the ideas I had shared in my speech and in the brief comments made to every student as they came up on stage to accept their award.

What I began to realize is that Click here to continue reading »”Are You Following These 3 Rules For Giving Effective Feedback?”

The following is a guest post by author and speaker Steven Smith. Voted as one of the top 100 business thought-leaders in the United States, Steve’s work has been adopted by several universities to help students gain a better understanding of how the business world really operates. His ideas and writings have lead him to work with a number of organizations including American Express, Microsoft, Disney, State Farm, and Hard Rock Cafe.

He’s the co-author of the book “egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability)” and he’s currently at work on his third book called “Us: Why we matters more than me and how to bridge the gaps between us”. Next Monday, he will be presenting a workshop at G5 Leadership called “Listen Up, Speak Up – How to tackle tough topics”, where he’ll discuss, among other things, the challenges in giving and receiving feedback, which is the subject of his guest piece here on my blog. Steve will also be giving an interpersonal communication workshop on the G5 Leadership website in August called “Pure Confidence”.

Thanks to the team at G5 Leadership, I will be giving away a number of FREE one-year memberships to G5 Leadership so you can attend these upcoming workshops by Steve as well as those given by other leadership speakers. To learn more about this contest I’m holding, check out my special message at the end of Steve’s post.

We’ve all been in the meeting where almost everything is said, except what needs to be spoken most, and everyone is painfully aware of the impact the unspoken words will have.

When the chance to speak up is there, it slips by, untaken, because of emotions like fear, anxiety, frustration, anger and distrust. We stare in the distance, wait for someone else, look away or hope what needs to be said disappears, and our anxiety with it.

Intellectually we’re committed to saying what’s on our mind, but emotionally we get intimidated or distracted long enough that the moment passes, and with it the truth that could help the most.

After the meeting we walk to the water cooler, where we take on the elephant that was in the room, directly. Why is it that the water cooler (real or hypothetical) seems to be the place where people are most honest? Click here to continue reading »”Bringing Water-Cooler Honesty to the Act of Giving and Receiving Feedback”

Recognition.

It’s something we all seek in our workplaces and yet, it’s the kind of feedback so many of us find noticeably absent in our interactions with those who lead our organizations.

There’s been numerous studies that show how making time to recognize the contributions of others helps to create both a positive environment and a more productive workforce. So why then are there so many employees who feel under-appreciated or under-valued by their organization’s leadership? To answer this question, we need to examine two aspects which are behind this quandary.

The first part of the problem is the misguided notion among leaders that their employees already know how good a job they’re doing and as such, there’s no need to point out the obvious to them. However, the problem with such thinking is that it’s self-centric, in that the leader’s focus is only on their own perceptions, as opposed to taking into consideration how their team members perceive the situation.

This leads to the second part of the problem over why there’s this lack of genuine recognition in the workplace. In cases where recognition efforts are made, leaders tend to concentrate on how offering such feedback benefits the company’s image, rather than as a gesture of appreciation or acknowledgement for the contributions of their team members. Indeed, for many leaders, providing recognition to their team is something that is addressed only in annual performance reviews or through formalized processes like ‘employee of the month’ programs. As most employees can attest, it’s a rare if unheard of practice to have leaders providing spur of the moment recognition for their efforts.

So how then can leaders address these two problems which are responsible for this lack of recognition in the workplace?

To find out my answer to this question, click on this link to read this guest post over at ReadyToFeedback.com.

As my kids revel in the freedom that comes with summer vacation, reflecting on my daughter’s end-of-year report card got me thinking about how we offer feedback to our employees. As was the case in previous years, she once again earned grades well above the class average. Of course, that’s not to say that there’s no room for improvement as her social studies mark was just barely higher than the class average.

In most cases, this is where a parent is supposed to ask the child why they’re not doing as well in this subject as they are in others. In fact, I recall from my own childhood that such differences in my grades would spur on comments of how I wasn’t ‘applying myself enough’ in this particular class. Indeed, sometimes these lower marks can move the focus from how well our children are doing in other classes to worrying about why they are having difficulties in this one particular subject.

I think this is why we all dread feedback from our leaders or other superiors – since our childhood days, we’ve become accustomed to getting ‘reviews’ telling us about our weak spots and being told what we need to do to ‘apply ourselves to do better’. Compare this to the number of times we were cheered on for those areas we accomplished in, or being asked what exactly allows us to succeed in these fields that we could perhaps use to address those areas that we’re not so good in.

Granted, there has to be an understanding that even if we try Click here to continue reading »”3 Tactics To Improve How You Give Feedback To Your Employees”