Addressing Subjective Aspects of Performance: Behaviors
Many managers are adept at initiating conversations about the objective parts of performance, but nearly most dread initiating conversations about personal issues such as behaviors and attitudes.
The traditional method by which they are taught to provide performance feedback to employees, sometimes referred to as “constructive criticism,” is often the very reason they avoid giving feedback in the first place.
That kind of feedback is typically framed as: problem, examples of shortcomings and negative impact. Inherent limitations with this kind of communication frequently manifest themselves as follows:
- From the employee’s perspective this information comes across as finger pointing, fault finding and disciplinary. Typical outcome: Defensive reaction
- Most of us avoid conflict like the plague. Who wants to be on the other side of dealing with the employee’s defensive reaction?
So what can managers do about it? How can they create talking points that are honest, not watered down yet hearable and sayable?
Understanding uncensored perceptions is the key. These are the real feelings about a person or circumstance, which would be inappropriate to share in their raw form. “He’s so high-maintenance”, “She’s a slacker” and “he inundates people with too much information” are examples of feelings managers might have but are appropriately unwilling to share.
Censoring some perceptions is probably a good thing, yet most often the manager simply won’t say anything at all. The person who should be receiving feedback misses out on the opportunity to gain some awareness around a key issue.
If you are a manager experiencing this sort of problem, try taking your negative thought and translating it into language that describes the exact opposite. The result should be talking in terms of what you want to have happen as opposed to talking about the problem behavior or performance.
Here are some examples of negative thoughts translated into “develop the ability to” statements:
| Negative thought | Develop the ability to: |
|---|---|
| Excuse Expert | Put your energy into identifying solutions |
| Doesn’t take responsibility | Take ownership of (fill in the blank) |
| Too conciliatory | Defend your positions |
| No desire to learn on their own | Take the initiative to add to your job knowledge |
| Condescending to those who are less experienced | Use your experience and knowledge to mentor those with less experience |
The lesson here is to frame performance issues as future-focused thought that describes what the performance could and should be. The statements above are just the beginning of the conversation, you’ll need to explain in detail what you mean by “Use your experience and knowledge to mentor those with less experience.” You’ll need to reach agreement with the employee on what the associated actions will be in order to meet the performance objective.
