OPENING SWOLLEN AND CLOSED UP EARS
Giving clear feedback is a skill at which the master communicator has become proficient. All of us fear confrontation and conflict that is hurtful instead of helpful. Muddy feedback feels confusing and demeaning. Clear feedback is direct and illuminating. It’s different strokes for different folks, too. In the Talk to Me© communication system, clear feedback is difficult for Empathizer-type (E-type) communicators to give because they feel it too often hurts feelings. Clear feedback is also a challenge for Instigator-type (I-type) communicators to receive, because they think two sides to every story can be told. Overall, the point of giving clear feedback is to promote positive changes that benefit all the people paddling in the same canoe.
WHY GIVE FEEDBACK?
In delivering quality feedback, the difficulty is that strong feelings emerge, making ears swollen and closed up. What can happen when constructive feedback isn’t effectively given or if it’s not heard in an efficient or timely fashion? Well, here are four spirit-killers of companies, teams, and families, which result from fear of giving feedback due to apprehension about retaliation:
PARALYSIS. I-type communicators become frustrated because the same old, same old bad stuff keeps boomeranging right on back, producing the same so-so levels of performance.
WALLS. E-type communicators, who have solutions to vexing problems, will keep their great (and greatest) ideas to themselves, stowed low behind their high walls of resentment.
IDEA DEPRIVATION. When E-types’ passionate ideas are tied together with the progressive I-type tenacity, the resulting unbeatable team is one that unleashes the key energies and breakthroughs to allow a company to keep running ahead of the pack.
TURNOVER. The best and brightest E- and I-types will leave organizations (couples, families) to seek greener grass, which is right under their feet…if anyone cared enough to water and fertilize it.
All of us fear conflict and unnecessary confrontation. Since most of us have had the unpleasant and distasteful experience of being on the receiving end of negative feedback that’s akin to getting your skin pricked with needles or chewed on by fleas, it’s no wonder giving feedback is such a fierce challenge for all of us Empathizer and Instigator communicators. What a bear!
5 STEPS TO GIVING CLEAR FEEDBACK
You are a good role model of giving clear feedback, because you don’t want to wait until it’s too late for the feedback recipient to change. Here are the five steps used in the boss or supervisory role:
1. PREPARE TO GIVE THE FEEDBACK
2. TELL THE RECIPIENT OF THE FEEDBACK WHY YOU’RE TALKING
3. TELL THE RECIPIENT WHAT YOU THINK OR FEEL
4. ASK FOR INPUT TO CLARIFY THE FEEDBACK
5. MAKE A PLAN TO HELP THE RECIPIENT ADDRESS THE SHORTCOMINGS STATED IN THE FEEDBACK
You will want to write out your clear and direct change message, to keep you from straying away from the message content when the typhoon of emotions arise. Additionally, you won’t be distracted or DEFLECTED from taking control of the situation. Moreover, you will send the genuine message that you value the other person as an integral part of your personal growth and relational life. Then, together, you CAN develop a business plan to correct the matter without further blowing up bridges of trust.
Let’s examine a real life example of giving clear and directive feedback. Here are 5 steps you can follow to give feedback that makes good changes happen fast — and last — using the Talk to Me© positive and effective communication system:
STEP 1: PREPARE TO TELL THEM
The golden rule of giving clear feedback is never-ever-ever just wing it or fly by the seat of your pants! You should write down in advance a clear script of what you are going to say. How to get ready? Well, what is at the heart of your core message?
Example: Joe isn’t making enough sales calls. Joe is a company veteran. Joe receives bonuses based on sales. What’s happening with Joe? He needs to be making those sales calls. I can keep in my mind the key items and focus of what I need and want to say. I don’t think I will stray off track. I’ll keep my notes at hand, but I think I’m ready now to sit down with Joe to talk about what’s the matter. (Practice saying the core message out loud a few times before your meeting.)
STEP 2: MENTION WHY YOU’RE TALKING
Be clear and direct about why you’re having the conversation. Don’t beat around the bush with either communicator type when you two sit down at the communicator table to have an intense talk. Be explicit about, “The reason I want to talk with you is….”
Example: Joe, the reason I want to talk with you is your unwillingness or inability to make 15 sales calls per week. You are consistently not meeting your goal, and I feel we need to discuss why this is.
STEP 3: EXPLAIN WHAT YOU THINK OR FEEL
Can you walk in the shoes of your opposite communicator type? Of course you can. For example, Empathizers prefer to hear what you THINK about the problem, while Instigators prefer to hear how you FEEL about the situation. Neither approach is wrong, just different. Use any combination of “I think…because,” or “I feel…because,” statements in order to net the best results.
Example: Joe, I feel concerned (disappointed, depressed, upset, angry, etc.). Joe, it disappoints me BECAUSE you’re not making even the minimal level of calls. Joe, I’m concerned BECAUSE you’re a veteran sales person in this company. You’ve been with the company 30 years. People look up to you and your experience. If you’re not making the calls and setting the example for the younger sales people, then they won’t make the calls, based on the bad example, which will prevent them from being successful. Joe, the other reason it concerns me is that BECAUSE you’ve worked for the company for 30 years, you’re expecting a certain income level. With the compensation being variable as your work is reflected, the fact that you’re not making the calls, could affect your future income….
E-types will DO something stupid (like quitting) as an indirect way of giving tough feedback, while I-types will SAY something stupid (shoot off their mouth) as a distracting way of receiving tough feedback. (Both are avoidance tactics that confuse communication. Deflecting good feedback that encourages you to look in the mirror of change isn’t useful.)
STEP 4: ASK FOR INPUT
Sincerely ask for input and listen to the responses. Listen up and don’t interrupt! This final part of Giving Clear Feedback takes the longest time. You are listening to what the feedback recipient has to say, and you don’t want to be steered in a non-productive direction. So, Listen up and don’t interrupt!
Boss: Joe, I want your input. How do you feel about that, Joe? How would you like to respond to what I’ve said? What are your thoughts? (This is the complex part and it’s not simple. The speaker may wander around and you will have to bring him/her back.)
Employee, Joe: I don’t believe in the product….I don’t want to work that hard….I didn’t realize the younger guys looked up to me….My mother just died….I haven’t been paying attention because I’ve got a sick kid at home….My wife/husband just left me….I don’t have any energy, and my physician can’t tell me why….(Uncovers what’s going on in a person’s life…mother is dying so employee is not paying attention, etc.)
We’re all SO naive to think personal life doesn’t affect business, or the reverse. Although this is the longest and least structured part of an “everyone wins” conversation, you will learn that by walking in the shoes of your opposite communicator type, you will avoid unnecessary losses and unfortunate misunderstandings that harm us all.
STEP 5: MAKE A PLAN
The hardest thing to do relationship-wise is to confront issues and follow through with indicated disciplinary actions. But doing so enables everyone to flush out the issues, allows the receiver to feel heard and valued, gives tough love that is received in like-kind, and brainstorms good options to get things back on track. Thus, these are truly corrective actions that will make life much better for everyone involved.
Boss: How do you feel about that now, Joe? Are we clear about the next steps we need to take? And the results that are expected? Great. I think we’ve flushed out the issues and how to change the situation. These are ways we’ve both freely agreed to correct the problem: X/Y/Z.
NO ONE LIKES CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK, ACTION PLANS, CORRECTIVE ACTIONS BUT….
More people loathe than love negative feedback. But without corrective negative feedback we can travel in circles, lost in a swamp or on the outerbelt of the Communication Highway, and never reach civilization or our destination. We can do better than that. Here are the five steps again ….
1. PREPARE TO TELL THE RECIPIENT
2. TELL THE RECIPIENT WHY YOU’RE TALKING
3. TELL THE RECIPIENT WHAT YOU THINK OR FEEL
4. ASK FOR INPUT TO CLARIFY THE ISSUE
5. MAKE A PLAN TO CORRECT THE ISSUE
Listen to what THEY have to say? Yes, if you’re using The Cliff Notes version for giving clear and direct feedback using the Talk to Me© communication system. It’s the best game in town to ensure that you’re being heard, if the person you’re talking with isn’t about playing the games people play.
DRIVING ON THE TWO-WAY TALK HIGHWAY — REASONS FOR GIVING CLEAR, DIRECT AND DIRECTIVE FEEDBACK
By the time you reach the junction of the FEEDBACK FUNCTION, everyone present can leave with a plan to fix the problem, and each person knows and understands that results will be accounted for, as in “I’ll be watching you….” Why go to all this trouble to talk? The truth of the matter of talk: Clear communication, as opposed to confusing communication, works untold miracles. Are you a miracle-worker? Of course you are. Giving good, clear feedback, using the Talk to Me© system is useful in working miracles BECAUSE…
- You write out the message
- It’s non-threatening but to the point
- You don’t beat around the bush
- You get right to the point
- You stay on your intended message
- You personalize the discussion by stating genuine concern for the person
- You devise a plan
- Yes, you feel chastised…but you feel good about it
- You aren’t accusatory…you don’t make accusations about anything
- Your communication is a combination of business and personal
- There’s no retaliation
- There’s precious little critical parent interrogation
- You don’t dress someone down
- You stay in control of your strong emotions
- You don’t allow talks to spin out of control and land you in a ditch
That’s why “talking sense to yourself and others” works so well!
WHY DOES BEING A RESPONSIVE COMMUNICATOR WORK?
Why does it work? Because you are being a responsive, not a reactionary, communicator, who is putting up with changeable frustrations or putting others down who need to give change a chance. You are using an approach that borrows from the best of both worlds of Empathizer-type and Instigator-type communicators, an approach that fuses together the combined traits of sensitive and insensitive communication styles to get the point across.
GIVING CLEAR FEEDBACK IS A SKILL AT WHICH THE MASTER COMMUNICATOR HAS BECOME PROFICIENT
Giving clear feedback is an acquired skill of good communication, between equal human beings at disparate levels in an organization. Delivering quality feedback is not for the faint-hearted or coward who picks at the toothpick in your eye, all the while ignoring the tree in his/her own eye.
ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS PSYCHOLOGIST DENNIS E. O’GRADY, PSY.D.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a relationship communications coach, corporate trainer and pioneer of the innovative Talk to Me© positive and effective communication system, which streamlines communication that is productive and useful, inside your head, inside your company, and inside your relationships. Communication mistakes and accidents plague us all, but the Talk to Me© approach to good communication will help boost your mood, keep your energy up, and free you from the tar baby of negative relationship emotions. Just try out the results of good communication for yourself!