You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Feedback’ category.
Some folks wonder whether or not it’s true that a good leader can manage anyone—even someone doing a job the leader doesn’t understand or someone with skills the leader doesn’t have. And, if it’s true, how is it possible?
In fact, leaders are often responsible for individuals who perform tasks the leader may never have personally done. This is why you sometimes hear of managers and executives who successfully change jobs from one industry to a completely different one. How is this possible, you ask? First, leaders often coordinate activities of highly skilled, mature employees who are often capable of working with little supervision. Second, leadership is primarily a people activity. If a person has good people skills such as the ability to motivate, communicate, and listen, then that person has the most important attributes of being a good leader, regardless of the type of work being done by direct reports.
If an employee is working in a specialized job with which his or her manager has had little or no experience, that manager can still help that employee achieve top results by listening to find out what that person needs to successfully do the job and working to meet those needs. In addition, a good leader can be a sounding board for ideas and can help talk through problems. A leader can also represent the importance and value of the person’s work to others within the organization.
In short, an effective leader must be resourceful. Remember, a common definition of management is “getting things done through others.”
This description of a good leader differs from the popular image held by many people. The effective leader or manager is not an all-knowing, multi-talented “super worker.” I’m glad to report that this stereotype is on its way out. We don’t need leaders who are good at everything—we need leaders who are very good at a few things, such as helping workers get what they need to complete their jobs or being adept at coordination throughout an organization.
Peter Drucker, one of the top leadership gurus, claimed that the best model for tomorrow’s organization is that of a symphony orchestra. In such an organization, a single person—the conductor—coordinates the performance of hundreds of specialists. The conductor communicates directly with each musician and can tell the musician what is needed to achieve the right combination of sounds without knowing how to play the tuba or the drums.
Effective leaders must know and be able to communicate what is expected. They provide the big picture. They don’t need to know exactly what must be done by specific individuals or departments to achieve those expectations. Effective leaders set goals and then translate those goals for others using clear communication. This ensures that the number of management levels between the CEO and those doing the job will not need to increase. Many organizations today have fewer layers of management and wider spans of control for leaders than typical hierarchies in the past. Increasingly, organizations will become loose-knit clusters of specialists who are served by their leaders.
Remember: Leaders are more likely to be effective at managing anyone if they have or develop the skills that are related to people and not specifically to a job or profession.
Many people get high marks for being good speakers. People have become presidential candidates due to their oratorical powers. In business, executives who wish to increase their public visibility hire speech writers to give them something terrific to say. We have long recognized the value of being a good speaker. Just ask any Toastmaster.
Now, how many people do you know who have received a prize or had their picture in the paper because they were a good listener? Darned few, I’ll wager. And yet, it’s rare to find a really good listener.
It’s too bad more people don’t take an active interest in listening, because much of listening involves getting feedback, a commodity which I consider to be a gift. When people tell you something that is important and useful, it means they care enough about you to give honest, sincere, and accurate data, which you should have.
Of course, your reaction to feedback, regardless of its content, will determine whether you will continue to get useful information from others. After all, if someone knows you are likely to become upset about something they’re communicating, they’ll eventually stop giving you information. If people know you’ll reject them or their message when they are honest with you, you’ll be working in the dark without the necessary intelligence about yourself or your environment. For a manager, this can be extremely dangerous. Here are four ways you can become a better listener:
First, always acknowledge with appreciation the person who gives you the feedback. You may dislike the information, but it may be potentially useful data you need in order to be more effective. Remember to disassociate the message from the messenger.
Second, don’t try to listen and think at the same time. I know it sounds crazy—just listen to the information as it comes to you. Disconnect your mental data processor and merely gather the data; process it at a later time. Get as much information as possible, and ask questions that may expand or clarify the situation. Keep pumping for details. The more information you have, the better.
Third, don’t try to solve a problem while listening. If you do this, your listening capabilities will greatly diminish, if not stop. Process all the details and then decide how to use the data. If you rush to react to news without having received all the information, it is possible that your actions will be faulty because the information is incomplete.
Finally, if you are receiving some unpleasant information you don’t especially want to hear, don’t blow up. Keep yourself under control. As I stated earlier, if someone knows you’ll verbally abuse them when they give you unpleasant news, they’ll eventually stop giving you any news at all—good or bad.
To review, the steps to effective listening are: 1. Thank the person for the information. 2. Gather as many details as possible. 3. Act only after you have all the facts. 4. When receiving negative feedback, maintain your composure. And always remember one of my favorite sayings taught to me by a former colleague, Rick Tate: Feedback is the breakfast of champions!
Like this:
When reprimanding, what you do is often not as important as what you don’t do. Since no one really enjoys a reprimand, it’s easy for people to be put on the defensive when receiving criticism. I suggest remembering these “don’ts” when you must reprimand an individual. If you don’t observe these points, you may find that people become less concerned with listening to you and more concerned with fighting you off. Read the rest of this entry »
A lot of managers don’t realize it, but one of their responsibilities is to be an educator. The problem is that not all managers are born teachers. For those who want to be good teachers, here’s a five-step method for developing those necessary teaching skills.
The five basic steps to good teaching/training are: 1. Tell; 2. Show; 3. Try; 4. Observe; and 5. Praise or Redirect. Knowing and following these five steps won’t make everyone a great teacher, but using them ensures that the learner will be able to accomplish what he or she is taught. Read the rest of this entry »
I was once involved in a corporate study where criticizing and praising were actually tabulated and the reactions measured. Look at what we found: When there was one praising for each criticism, people felt as though they had a totally negative relationship with their boss. When the ratio was changed to two praisings to one reprimand, people still thought their boss was all over them. It wasn’t until we got to a ratio of four praisings to one criticism that people began to feel as if they had a good relationship with their boss. Read the rest of this entry »
There is a Positive Psychology course that Margie and I have been taking that is really interesting. We ran into a guy named Nathaniel Branden, who wrote about the six pillars of self-confidence. His big theme is nobody’s coming. If you are thinking about someone who is going to get you out of a situation, and you’re waiting for them to take all the action, the reality is that people can do things, but nobody is really coming. What are you going to do? One thing that’s interesting is the difference between passive victims—people who are in a situation and immediately go to self-pity—“This is really tough.” Then they want to point fingers and blame other people. This leads to frustration, and eventually anger, and things kind of spiral down that way. This is the passive victim that somehow thinks their fate is in somebody else’s hands, versus the active agent who takes action—“Okay, this is tough, but what am I going to do? What can I do in my area? What ideas do I have?” They are willing to take responsibility, which is being able to respond, and give suggestions that will help. They have a feeling of confidence—“Somehow we’re going to make it through this thing together.” This leads to hope and optimism. We all need to take action—what can we do to help? Let’s work on responsibility. I have confidence and hope. What is it that makes some people be able to pull out of tough times? It’s all about resiliency. So remember—we’re all responsible somewhat for the condition we’re in. So be an active agent, not a passive victim. Life is a very special occasion. Don’t miss it with a lot of negative energy.
I’ve written previously about Charles Handy, a friend of mine who’s a great management thinker from England. During one of his presentations he said, “Most of you are not going to remember much what I say in this session, but I will remember everything. The person who learns the most is the one who speaks the most.” I think that’s really a powerful thing. In the course that Margie and I teach for the Master of Science in Executive Leadership program at USD, sometimes there’s a complaint that they would love to hear more from us and our thinking. We try to integrate some of that, but the course is really about the students and their thinking and their learning to communicate their leadership point of view. It’s really so reinforcing to watch people where the real learning is happening. Because they are doing the talking. Very often we get fascinated by our own words; even as we try to teach our kids and other people things we think they ought to learn. If we realized that if we listen more than we speak, probably more learning would take place in the person we are trying to teach. Ha! That’s kind of a relearning for today—the person who speaks the most probably learns the most. The rest are going to forget what you have to say anyway. So let other people speak up. Facilitate their thinking through issues. Don’t always be the problem solver. Have a wonderful day. Life is a very special occasion when you let other people speak.
I have been thinking about how important it is to be caught doing things right. Some people think you have to be careful; you don’t want to praise people too much, because they’re going to get a big head. People don’t get a big head by getting caught doing things right. People get false pride and big heads because they’re not praised enough. And they start to crave it, and they need it, and they start to push and shove for credit. When I was a kid, I was so fortunate, no matter what I did there was always somebody there—my mom or dad or my sister—to give me an “attaboy” and tell me that I did great. I think one of the reasons why I’m able to keep things in perspective, if I happen to achieve anything, and laugh about it, is because I’ve been told I’m okay all of my life. So I don’t really need or crave it or need to push or shove for it. So I just wanted to say to you how important, again, it is to help people who are important in your life and give them an “attaboy” or “attagirl” and tell them that you love them and you care about them. Because what really makes people feel good in the long run is the belief about that. False pride comes when nobody pays any attention to you and you start to wonder if you’re okay. Everybody needs that pat on the back once in a while.
You know, my son Scott gives a presentation called “If You’re Talking, You’re Losing,” which is a really powerful thing. I think we all talk first and listen second. You know that saying about how if God wanted us to speak more than listen he would have given us two mouths—but he gave us two ears. I heard a wonderful thing recently, too: “Lead with your ears.” This is a thing I really need to learn. The problem with some of us is that we get so excited, and we’re so into what we’re doing, that when people talk to us the first thing we do is think about a response. We think about what we’re going to say next. I think I do that too often. So if I’m ever with you and I’m talking too much, just say to me very gently, “Ken—Shut your mouth and use your ears!” Wouldn’t it be neat if we could all feel free to do that with each other? If we would listen, we’d probably learn a lot more. So my thought today for myself and probably all of us is: Listen more and speak less. And remember when people say things, even if it sounds like it’s going to be a problem if you do something with what they say, separate out listening from deciding what you’re going to do. Listen first and decide second. Listen, listen, listen.
