Windsor Training: teams

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

4 Ways to Give Effective Criticism at Work

The image shows an army drill instructor shouting at a new recruit and this is supposed to symbolize the feeling that an employee has when they feel that they are being criticized unfairly.

Nobody really likes to be criticized: the word has negative connotations of someone pulling your work apart and telling you how bad it is and making you feel angry and annoyed, just like a drill instructor shouting at a new recruit. The reality is that people are often simultaneously bad at giving criticism and similarly poor at receiving it. Whilst we often like to think that we are giving out good advice and feedback, the recipient may hear our words as negative criticism and respond in a way that we had not intended.

Couching everything as mere feedback often misses the point that there may be serious performance issues that need to be addressed. That doesn't, however, mean that the manager has to adopt an overtly negative or hyper-critical approach to giving meaningful and developmental criticism. Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos are famous for roasting colleagues, you and I have to be more positive in our approach, if we want to develop our team and deliver on our objectives.

So how do we ensure that as a manager we are a good critic to?

#1 – Accentuate the Positives

Start by praising what went well. If you start on a positive then you have the team member on side and they'll also believe that what you are telling them is balanced and considered and they may be more receptive to what you have to say. If you launch in with what went wrong, then you will alienate them from the outset and their defences will be up, even if you then proceed to give them some praise for something that went well.

#2 – Highlight Progress

Even if the performance isn't quite where it needs to be, give credit where progress has been achieved and forward momentum has been made. A key part of motivation is to feel that we are getting good at something, but if all we hear is how bad we are doing, even where some progress – however slight – is being made, then this can be a powerful de-motivator. If things have improved, then say so.

#3 – Be Encouraging

Suggest that the issue can be resolved and that the team member is capable of overcoming it and succeeding, given the right encouragement and support. Try and be nurturing towards your team, because the payback in terms of the boost to performance will be incalculable and you will be building a supportive and loyal group around you.

#4 – Share the Blame

Don’t make the team member out to be a scapegoat. If you are the manager, then some of the blame probably sits on your shoulders and if part of the reason is something that you did, or failed to do, then say so. Otherwise you will just start to build resentment and a belief that you are prepared to sacrifice others and shift the blame. Your team don’t expect you to be infallible, but they do expect you to have broad enough shoulders to admit your own mistakes when they happen.

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Are you a boring boss?

When was the last time you made your team yawn?

Google research says forget conventional leadership traits, 'boring is best'

Yawn: boring bosses are best for business

Conventional wisdom suggests that a good leader should be dynamic and courageous, with a dash of charisma and a good turn of phrase. Well, that most unconventional of companies, Google, has just released its conclusions from some extensive research, derived from internal data and gleaned from countless interviews with Google employees about what they feel makes a good leader. Their conclusions are rather surprising, because the most important trait that staff tend to appreciate in their leaders are none of these things. What the Google employees overwhelming suggest makes a good leader, is that they need to be ‘boring’ or, more precisely, predictable.

These are interesting findings, but it is hardly surprising that this is something that might be found at a business, such as Google, which is staffed by teams of highly qualified technical experts and creatives. They often respond best when they are allowed to have their own space and develop whatever project they are working on without the interference of a manager.

Nevertheless, I do think that this research has some validity, it was conducted in a very large and progressive business with a significant sample size of data, although it would be interesting to see this replicated across other types of organisation. It certainly ties in with recent research relating to motivational psychology, where emphasis is placed upon the need for autonomy, mastery and purpose. The results of recent research and its application to business has been well presented and popularised in the book, Drive, by Dan Pink. However, I wonder whether such a trait has universal relevance in other work environments and alternative situational leadership circumstances or whether it is symptomatic of the Google workplace and other similar Silicon Valley organisations. It would be worthy of further study and research.

Anecdotally I have certainly felt more motivated in situations where I was not micro-managed by an overzealous boss who was too keen to involve themselves in the minutiae. My previous article about Steve Job, “Riding the Shithead-Hero Rollercoaster”, suggested that Jobs firmly believed that you had to allow your team to deliver and trust them to do so in an environment in which they felt empowered to innovate and challenge. Although it is clear that both Jobs - and someone like Jeff Bezos at Amazon - do encourage cultures where confrontation is viewed as healthy to foster growth and development – something that would seem at variance with the idea of predictability, which is something that neither Jobs nor Bezos could be accused of.

This will obviously prompt further debate and research, but if you have been brushing up your leadership skills recently, you might just like to stop what you are doing and take a breather, switch on the TV or start collecting beer cans or fridge magnets, and see what you can do to make yourself just a little more boring and predictable. Rather than being boring, you can call it management training!

Written by Will Trevor, Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training

Email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Picture Credit: "Sueño (9215495371)" by Juanedc from Zaragoza, España - SueñoUploaded by juanedc. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sue%C3%B1o_(9215495371).jpg#mediaviewer/File:Sue%C3%B1o_(9215495371).jpg