A Better Way to Give Employees Feedback Now | 2-Minute Video

Giving and receiving feedback can be difficult. Giving and receiving bad feedback is even worse.

We’re not talking about negative evaluations. We’re talking about doing a bad job with any kind of performance or behavior conversation.

What’s Up in This Episode: Feedback Redo

In this episode of HRMorning’s 3-Point, Kathie Leslie, Owner of Kathryn Leslie, LLC, an HR consulting firm, will give us a really good example of really bad feedback! And she’ll follow that with tips on how to assess and critique employees’ performance in a way that helps them become better.

Click, watch and listen for those examples and tips on how to give employees input that will help them become better in their roles.

Transcript (edited for clarity):

Unfortunately, there are a lot more bad ways to give employee feedback than there are good ways. Fortunately, in this episode of the 3-Point, we’re going to focus on one great feedback approach. But let’s start with one of those bad ones.

Kathie Leslie, Owner, Kathryn Leslie, LLC: “A manager was unfortunately criticizing an employee. And what he did, what he said was, ‘Debbie, I don’t know what you’re doing, but stop! Customers are complaining.’ So you put yourself in Debbie’s shoes, and it’s like, ‘I don’t know what I did. I don’t know when I did it. But my manager seems to be mad at me. And I really don’t know what to do, so I’m probably going to creep away and do as little as possible.’”

Well, that didn’t work. In fact, it did the exact opposite of what it should: develop employees. So let’s hear what works. First …

Kathie Leslie: “SBI. Situation, behavior and impact. So when I’m able to talk to someone and say, ‘Here was the situation. Here is the behavior that you exhibited. And this is the impact, either positive or negative. And provide that level of feedback, we now have a better understanding, because I’m getting specific.” 

You don’t have to imagine what it would be like if Debbie got that kind of feedback. Kathie Leslie shows exactly what great feedback sounds like:

Kathie Leslie: “Debbie, yesterday, when so-and-so called the office, you put him through to the wrong extension. That was very frustrating to him. It’s really important that you’re accurate with transferring calls.’ Now, Debbie knows what to do and can do something about it. So the SBI is a really good model if you can train managers to provide that level of feedback.”

Even conversations about mistakes or behaviors that have to change don’t have to sting. And it definitely shouldn’t leave employees wondering what they did wrong and how they’re supposed to fix it. To improve feedback in your organization:

• Identify bad feedback. Are any managers making the classic mistake our expert shared?
• Share the model. Go with the SBI approach – Situation. Behavior. Impact.
• Train managers. Give them solid examples of what SBI sounds like and the results it should produce.

This is just one of many important topics for your front-line managers. You can find plenty more stories, videos and webinars to help them with performance management under the Performance Management tab on HRMorning’s home page. As always, thanks for joining us.