When discussing the “How to’s” of building an engaged culture, we hear lots of talk about “reinforcing the positive” and “catching people doing things right”, but what happens when people are doing things wrong and we need to provide corrective direction.   Specific steps need to take place to get the person moving in the proper direction while still keeping them positive and motivated.

Most importantly, you must focus on the situation or issue versus the person, while sharing a more appropriate course of action. We all need to avoid falling into the trap of confusing criticism with constructive feedback.

Constructive feedback is information-specific, issue-focused, and based on observations, while criticism is a personal judgment about a performance effort or outcome, usually given is general and vague manner, focused on the person, and based on opinions or feelings

These steps you will help you have more success.

1. Describe: Start by describing what the person did accurately and concisely. Be objective and neutral — remember, how we say something is just as important as what we say. Provide specifics of what happened and do not exaggerate or minimize the situation. Focus on the positive contribution.
2. Explain: Explain the impact of the behaviour on the customer, team or organization. These need to be observations of what you have seen or heard — not your interpretations or opinions. Observations are factual and non-judgmental. It is helpful to start focused on ‘I’. ‘I notice’, ‘I have seen’ or even I have been told’. This will help keep the discussion issue focused. Avoid using ‘but’, ‘although’ or ‘however’ to link this to the first section. These words create contradictions and send a mixed message that effectively negates any positive message you started with.
3. Suggest: Suggest specific changes that you would like to see made and explain what you want the person to do differently. The more specific, the more likely they person will be able to implement the suggestion next time.
4. Commit: Seek a commitment to change. Be clear on the consequences of continuing in this vein. Seek an agreement about the new, modified behaviour. In extreme cases, be clear of the consequences of not making these changes — but again be objective and neutral to minimize this sounding like a threat.

Example: One of your team is being described as harsh or bossy when providing direction to other team members.

Describe: Bill, I really appreciate that you have taken ownership of this project and are providing clear, well thought-out input on what next steps are needed. I wanted to let you know how valuable this is to the team and the overall success of the project.

Explain: I notice that sometimes when you provide direction to other team members, you are very quick and specific when giving input — which sometimes creates the impression that you don’t value their input and think that only your way is the correct way.

Suggest: I’d like to suggest that you take some time to understand why they did it the way they chose and what next steps they are considering. Then building on their ideas, share some additional thoughts on how they can accomplish their goal.

Commit: That way, they will feel that you are adding to their thoughts and helping them be more successful. Does that make sense? Would you give that a try next time and let me know how it works?

Feedback should be given, as close as possible to when the performance incident occurs so that the events are fresh in everyone’s minds. When feedback is given well after the fact, the value of the constructive feedback is lessened.

The exception may be when giving negative feedback. Sometimes when a negative incident happens you may need time to get your thoughts in order before you give negative feedback (coming on too strong or in an angry manner will negate any good you hope to achieve). Giving the feedback tomorrow rather than immediately will come across as far more constructive — and tomorrow is still timely.

Lastly — and hopefully these go without saying — your feedback should be person-to-person versus in writing. The very nature of feedback is a mentoring/coaching activity, which should be done verbally and informally. You should also provide positive feedback in the same manner at least as often as you provide corrective feedback.

By focusing on the positive and keeping the discussion fact based when providing correction, you are able to modify and build new behaviours, without challenging their current behaviours. What do you think? Is it worth a try?

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

These are 2 of the most powerful words in the English language — they are equally powerful in any language. They express our gratefulness for the benefits we have received, either in personal or business relationships.

This past weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada so I wanted to share a thanksgiving story about one of my clients — PRO-TAX, headquartered in Charlottesville Virginia.

I have had the privilege to work with this organization since 2008 and they have consistently demonstrated their values and commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience. And they are working every day to improve and make it better.

This story occurred after a recent trip to their corporate offices to conduct customer research. We spent time talking with customers to better understand their emotional and business needs.

When I returned home I received a hand written Thank You note from the President.

How often do you receive a Thank You note from your clients?

I often speak about the power of a Thank You, but usually when referring to thanking our customer/clients for their business or employees for their efforts.

What a remarkable example of truly living your values.

Thanks to the great group of folks at PRO-TAX for reminding us that we should be thanking all the people in our lives who enrich and add value — not just the ones who pay us money.

My Perspective: Who has contributed to your business or personal life that you haven’t thanked recently. Make a point to do so this week.

Plus, I want to offer my thanks to everyone who has contributed to making this past year so great. Whether as clients, colleagues, readers, contributors or the many bright and engaged people I have had the privilege to meet — thank you for making my life richer.

Another successful technique for providing recognition doesn’t require talking—that’s right, you can provide positive feedback to anyone without saying a word. The only requirement is you have to see them demonstrating the desired behaviour.

If you have followed some of my previous advice and make recognition an ongoing part of your team culture, this technique will fit in extremely well. You begin by deciding as a team on a symbol to use as a positive cue — a sign you can make to anyone that says, “Well Done!”

We are all familiar with “thumbs up” or “OK” circle; universal signals for positive communication.
I once heard about a team that decided that when they saw positive behaviours demonstrated they would give each other the finger — a raised index finger for “We’re #1″.

A hand signal does not take the place of verbal or written feedback, but it is a useful addition to one’s toolkit for identifying and acknowledging value added activities.

An obvious benefit is that you can do this across a room and no one else even knows what you are doing — something unique to your team or organization. Your own secret sauce!

I know that these tactics seems too simple — but it is inexpensive, personal, relevant, factual, repeatable — and it works.

Employees want to be acknowledged, to know that the company is aware of their contribution or even more important — their efforts to overcome the limitations of their equipment, unforeseen problems, outdated systems and processes are noticed and appreciated.

People don’t leave companies — they leave Managers. Two of the biggest reasons are; Managers who doesn’t know how to recognize people effectively, and having to work around poor performing co-workers, bad systems and other problems and not being appreciated and acknowledged.

When your feedback describes what they did and what they had to overcome, you defeat the negative and create a positive, supportive, high performance culture where everyone is working to improve, and where adding value gets noticed.

Try this technique and I guarantee employee engagement will go up and surveys will have positive responses about management and supervision. In addition, turn-over and absenteeism will go down and performance and productivity will go up.

I must admit, I am uncomfortable when someone compliments me about my work. Of course I want people to be happy about my behaviour (performance) and I want positive feedback versus the alternative, but for me, I am uncomfortable responding to praise, or compliments. I’d like to hear something specific about my work rather than some generic comment about me.

For example I prefer: “That was a great idea you proposed for ……” versus “Your idea was brilliant. You’re very creative.”  (Okay, I like that too, but I prefer the former).

You’re probably thinking I am over analyzing and I should take all the positives I can get and shut up. Probably good advice, but I can’t change my emotional response to flattery, praise, or compliments — they make me a bit uncomfortable.

I prefer a positive comment about the specific behaviour and its effect. Nobody has to add anything personal or gushy to make me feel good. The behaviour speaks for itself.

For instance: “That comparison you used in the first paragraph really helps the reader understand your point.”  Instead of: “You’re a great writer—so eloquent.”

Describing the behaviour and the effect is a particularly good approach if you are just starting to provide positive recognition for behaviours.

It also works with someone you may not have a good relationship with. Anything you say to that individual is going to be hesitantly received — they are sensitized to every phrase, gesture, tone, and inflection. If you have a real good relationship with someone, then you have larger margin for error.

Some other examples of positive feedback include:

• When you apologized for the inconvenience to the customer who had to wait in line and thanked them for their patience, which really demonstrated our principle of empathy.
• That recommendation you made really demonstrated your knowledge about that aspect of the business. It will really save us time.
• Your PowerPoint created a buzz after the meeting. The senior team said your presentation made it easy for them to understand the issue and take action.
• I noticed that your email was sent late last night. I appreciate your commitment and know I can count on the project to be delivered on schedule.

Stay away from describing the person and focus on describing the valued-added behaviour and its effect
After you have laid the groundwork based on what they did and what effect it had, then you can add personal appreciation.

You can then start you comments with “I appreciated you taking the time to….” You have now added a personal touch based on creating a positive relationship of recognition.

Employees want to be acknowledged, to know that the company is aware of their contribution or even more important — their efforts to overcome the limitations of their equipment, unforeseen problems, outdated systems and processes are noticed and appreciated.

People don’t leave companies — they leave Managers. Two of the biggest reasons are; Managers who doesn’t know how to recognize people effectively, and having to work around poor performing co-workers, bad systems and other problems and not being appreciated and acknowledged.

When your feedback describes what they did and what they had to overcome, you defuse any pent up frustration and create a positive, supportive, high performance culture where everyone is working to improve, and where adding value gets noticed.

Try this technique and I guarantee employee engagement will go up and surveys will have positive responses about management and supervision. In addition, turn-over and absenteeism will go down and performance and productivity will go up.

Recent studies that support this philosophy include:

• Spot awards to employees resulted in 10 times greater return on investment than an increase in base pay. (McKinsey and Company Compensation Round Table 2008)
• Paying people a compliment appears to activate the same reward centre in the brain as paying them cash. (The Japanese National Institute for Physiological Services)
• Acknowledging staff achievements (praising employees) had the same impact on job satisfaction as a 1 per cent increase in pay. (2008 White Water Strategies)
• Non-cash incentives were 24 per cent more powerful at boosting performance than cash incentives. (University of Chicago 2004).

The key underlying imperative is that these type of recognition activities must be ingrained into the culture of the organization. A “way to go” that is is out of character will be seen as disingenuous and potentially have more of a detrimental impact that saying nothing.

So make sure these initiatives are evolutionary and build credibility and trust.