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Giving Negative Feedback – 5 Methods that Will Help You

Giving Negative Feedback – 5 Methods that Will Help You

by | Jan 25, 2018 | Management, World of Work

It is always difficult to have a conversation about something someone is not doing well enough, at work. However, without these conversations, and appropriate avenues to facilitate these conversations, getting better would never be an option. Giving Negative Feedback is something that can get uncomfortable for either of the two reasons: 1. not being sensitive enough, 2. for being too sensitive and not putting across your point clearly. However, if you are in the shoes of someone who is expected to help your co-workers grow – by providing them with timely and accurate feedback, you will have to familiarize yourself with the process of delivering feedback. And it won’t always be positive feedback.

Here are 5 methods that will help you deliver negative feedback in a more structured, professional, and hopefully pleasant way:

  1. Take the help of self-assessments

    If you use self-assessments, your job is already half done. Using a pre-made self assessment checklist, and asking your team member to complete it before the feedback meeting helps both of you gain perspective about the current situation. In a lot of ways, it also helps both concerned get on the same page. By taking the help of a self-assessment you help prepare yourself for the meeting, and also give the concerned person an opportunity to rate himself/ herself honestly. During your meeting, this can be used as a yardstick to discuss the feedback you have.

  2. Use their job description as a basis

    Another “tool” apart from the self-assessment checklist that you can use to facilitate the feedback session is the job description of the team member. A job description is an outline of the expected roles and responsibilities of an employee. By using it as a basis of comparison to the actual tasks and objectives being met by the individual, you will have an idea about if he/she is aligned with the job description or has deviated from it. This will also help you point this out to your team member.

  3. Support your feedback with examples

    The basis for your negative feedback would be specific. And it is important to say out loud the specifics of the feedback. In other words, if your feedback comes with an example of a specific situation, bring it up. By doing so, you are able to be clear in your communication and this will also help you tackle the next steps of thinking about a solution to the problem. When you speak in vague terms, finding solutions to problems become difficult. As a result of which the problem may keep occurring.

  4. Speak about strengths

    It is important to support or balance your negative feedback with positive feedback. Remember that the objective of the feedback session is to bring to the notice of the team member what is not working, and to motivate him/ her to do better, and not the contrary. If it were the contrary then this would have been a meeting to discuss the individual’s termination from the organization. Therefore, it is important to also speak about the skills and the strengths of the individual. It is also important to be careful about how you speak. Adopting a tone that is firm, yet kind is the best bet. Do make sure that the session is a dialogue. Listening is as important as speaking!

  5. Remind yourself that this is your job

    No matter how hard it is to carry through this session, you need to because after all, it is your job. Before the session, it is important for you to orient yourself about it so you can be as professional as possible. Remember that it is not a personal reason being discussed, but a professional one. Hence, you must remain objective through out. It is also important to keep in mind that the team member concerned may not view the feedback as objectively as you provide it. In which case, you would have to remind yourself to hold your ground and tell yourself that you are doing your job.

Have you been in a position where you have had to discuss or provide negative feedback to a team member? What worked for you and what didn’t? Hearing from you always motivates us to write better, so do write back!

Measuring Loyalty: Is it Possible? A Guide to Modern Day Loyalty

Measuring Loyalty: Is it Possible? A Guide to Modern Day Loyalty

by | Jan 15, 2018 | World of Work

Do age old scruples such as loyalty to your employer at your workplace even make sense in the highly globalized and ever evolving world of work, today? To ask a much more basic question, what does loyalty even mean? In an age and world where growth is characterized by dynamism, is loyalty a virtue, or a hindrance to success? Most importantly though, can one measure loyalty?

There is no defined way of addressing these questions. Experiences are lived differently, and opinions are as diverse as experiences. In this post, we wish to explore the aspect of loyalty to an employer from a more ‘everyday’ perspective. Or, to put it in a better way – what would “loyalty” to your employer in the modern day comprise of? Loyalty needn’t necessarily mean an undying pledge to be forever rooted in the same organization, against your interests of growth because you believe in and respect your employer. What it comes real close to, in meaning though, is honesty. How you answer the following questions for yourself will help you understand what your feelings are, about loyalty towards your employer at your work place.

  1. Measuring Loyalty: How accountable to your employer do you feel, on an everyday basis?

    To understand this question we need to understand that accountability here does not mean the forced or imposed kind. One of the best examples to understand true accountability is when you have a role that enables you to work from home. True, even work from home roles have their own protocols of surveillance, but unarguably it does present more scope where you could “choose” to slack. But would you? Or would you feel a sense of accountability towards your employer and strive to put in an honest day’s work? You are accountable even if you may not feel particularly loyal towards your organisation/ employer. However, the purpose of juxtaposing these two aspects is to gain an insight about how one would personally analyze his/her reason for feeling accountable without being made to feel accountable.

  2. Measuring Loyalty: From the following words – fear, respect, indifference, – which would come close to describing how you feel towards your employer?

    Do you feel afraid of your employer? Is the driving motivation for your work fear?
    Do you respect your employer? Are you motivated to work hard, and give your job the best you can because your employer inspires you and commands respect?
    Or do you feel indifferent? You put in your 8 hours, and go home. Nothing more, nothing less.
    How you would define your opinion of your employer and your relationship with him/ her is an important factor in determining your loyalty towards your employer. One might stay loyal out of fear, but that counts as a toxic workplace attitude. One might be indifferent – in which case, you would indifferent to the aspect of loyalty. However, one might be motivated to do well because of love and respect for the employer – which is a true measure of loyalty.

  3. Measuring Loyalty: How prone would you be to getting poached?

    This would be the ultimate test for loyalty. One of the most important ways of measuring loyalty is to determine how susceptible the employee is, to believing that the grass is greener on the other side. When we talk about modern day loyalty, this becomes a huge factor because increase in attrition rates is a concern that many organisations are facing. Attrition rates are also reflective of how an organization treats its employees. Assuming that your workplace does not have a high attrition rate, and employees are taken care of, where would you place yourself? How prone would you be to getting carried away with a job offer that appears lucrative? Would you ditch your organisation which has invested in you, and an employer who trusts your skills, for some place where the grass seems greener?

Measuring Loyalty: From the Other End of the Spectrum

Now lets take a look at loyalty, from the other end of the spectrum. We put what we want to say in perspective by including excerpts from a superb article on Medium – On Loyalty by Stevie Buckley. You can read the full article here.

You are a transaction. Sure, your employer gives you the impression they care about you but as soon as you start costing the company money or pose a risk to the company’s image or breach any other element of your 300 page contract, then I can absolutely assure you that they will drop you in a heartbeat. You don’t even need to do anything wrong to be at risk. If the company is struggling financially, due to no fault of yours, you and all your colleagues are at risk. Suddenly the corporate line of “we’re all family here” sounds a bit ridiculous.

Your employer pays you to spend more time with them than you spend with your family and/or loved ones. Your employer is one of the biggest influencers on your mental well-being. Your employer can and will replace you in a heartbeat if absolutely necessary.

Let me be explicitly clear, your employer isn’t your family and they are not your friend. They pay you to do a job and your responsibility is to do that job well.

  • Do not sacrifice your relationship with family and friends to appease your employer.
  • Do not sacrifice your mental wellbeing to appease your employer.
  • Do not sacrifice your dignity, values and ethics to appease your employer.
  • Do not buy into the bullshit hype of “hustle” to appease your employer.

Mutual Respect

Get your head down and work hard. If your employer compensates you well, puts effort into ensuring you are healthy in every sense and invests in your personal and/or professional growth then by all means, tell the world how happy you are.

Focus on your own growth. Focus on helping the humans you work with. Focus on being efficient with your time and efforts so that you can spend even more time and effort on the things and people that truly matter.

And that’s the apt note to end this post at, with ample food for thought with what modern day loyalty comprises of, and if and how loyalty can be measured!

Five Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies for Managers

Five Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies for Managers

by | Sep 8, 2017 | Leadership, Management, Office Etiquette, World of Work

Learning how to effectively and efficiently resolve conflict is one of the most important skills for a leader, and a manager. The work place is representative of a stand alone universe in itself. In which case, it is only obvious that it will have people from diverse backgrounds, with diverse goals and objectives in their minds. While diversity is a bonus, it can also lead to making differences more obvious. Which in turn could lead to conflict. Conflict in work place is an unavoidable situation. Imagining the existence of a completely harmonious  work place is just an idyllic thought. While conflict is an unavoidable part of the day-to-day functioning at the workplace, there are tried and tested strategies to effectively diffuse conflict, and your role as the manager is crucial towards the methods adopted for resolution of the conflict. Have a look at some of the best and most effective Conflict Resolution Strategies.

Conflict Resolution Strategies #1 – Practice on Building Foresight

Prevention is better than cure. Most conflicts can be predicted, detected and prevented in an early stage. To avoid matters from escalating, watch out for situations which feel like they could blow up into a potential conflict. This is where your experience and acumen as a manager comes in handy. A stitch in time could save the day.

Conflict Resolution Strategies #2 – Be Objective

When called upon or intervening to resolve a conflict, it is important to review the matter in an objective manner. Being objective in situations of conflict helps you think clearly, and helps you move towards a fair, efficient and speedy resolution. It is easy to assume one party as the victim, and the other as the perpetrator when things are taken at face value. However, that is where your role as a manager is crucial. Look at the whole matter objectively, taking stock of, and recording facts wherever necessary before making a judgement or pronouncing any decision.

Conflict Resolution Strategies #3 – Call for a private meeting

Speaking to the concerned parties at the same time and place while the matter is still fresh, can only cause things to get worse. A process of reconciliation should definitely be initiated, however not at the very outset. Call for a private meeting with both parties concerned and hear them out individually. This will help you get a clearer picture of the issues, and will also function as a cooling period for both parties. In a way, they get to speak what’s on their mind and that in itself is a crucial part of conflict resolution.

Conflict Resolution Strategies #4 – Keep it professional

Once a conflict goes down the personal route, it is a very sticky and unpleasant situation to recover from. It may be very difficult to stop an escalation in that direction, because the base of no conflict is wholly professional, whereas the base of all conflicts are definitely to some extent ideological. Ideological conflicts in turn, can quickly turn into personal ones. Your intervention as the manager is what stops the conflict from turning into a personal one. As a manager, keep your treatment of the conflict as professional as possible and avert/ reject any personal stabs.

Conflict Resolution Strategies #5 – Not every conflict needs your intervention

Understanding that conflict is a natural part of the work space is a lesson you will learn over time as a manager. Not every conflict will need your intervention, and it is up to you to choose which ones need your intervention. Allow for a culture where conflicts can be resolved naturally and mutually. That is how it should work for most small-scale conflicts. Knowing just when to step in is a managerial art, one that comes with experience and practice. But having faith that your team can resolve a conflict on its own is also a managerial art.

Being in a leadership position is not easy because there will be situations you will have to deal with, which given a choice you’d choose not to deal with. That is where the challenge of being a good and efficient manager lies.  How you deal with these issues affect the environment in the organisation, and the productivity and vibe of your team. Never hesitate to reach out to senior colleagues or mentors for advice on a given situation related to conflict resolution – keeping in mind the confidentiality of the parties involved, of course.

Have a case study or personal experience on effective conflict resolution strategies? This is the right place to put them out! Comments invited.

7 Tips for First Time Managers

7 Tips for First Time Managers

by | Mar 22, 2017 | Career, Communication, Management, Motivation

This is a shout out to all you first time managers out there! You are bound to be attacked by butterflies in your tummy, and the symptoms of having cold feet whenever you set out to do something you’ve never done before. While these voyages might appear terrifying, they are a sure sign of the fact that you are growing – in your experiences, and hence as an individual. Applying this general strand of thought to the topic at hand today, this post is dedicated to all you folks out there in the world of work, ready to take on the brand new role of being a manager – for the first time ever.
Before you begin reading this though, we’d like to emphasize that this in no way is a “tutorial”. A change in perspective before you begin to read this will help you understand your new role better. Know that you have risen up in the corporate ladder to be a manager solely because you have it in you to lead, manage and have teams deliver. That said, there are things one knows about, and there are always things one can do better. This post is simply an effort to bolster the latter. Happy reading!

1. Wrap your head around your role and responsibilities

The only way you’ll be able to lead and manage a team well is if you know your own role and responsibilities well enough. Work on yourself before you begin to work on / with your team. Do you own research to have a very thorough sense of the goals you are going to be working on. Ask yourself how you imagine yourself achieving them. Then ask yourself if that process can be applied to the rest of your team as well. While your approach will, of course, depend on the specific situation you might be dealing with at the given moment, having a general sense of direction is a great way to begin this new role.

2. Be Decisive

Making decisions, when you are aware that they no longer affect only yourself, can be tough in the stead of your new role. That however, shouldn’t stop you from making them altogether. Well, you definitely cannot “stop”, making decisions, but as a result of being indecisive you may end up delaying those decisions which will hamper the progress of your entire team. This will not only put the objectives and goals at stake, it will also be a reflection on you as a leader, and manager. The fact is, one can’t ever be sure enough about the consequences of any decision – which is what lies at the root of indecisiveness. All you can do is, weigh the pros and cons to the best of your knowledge and ability, and go ahead and implement the decision you make.

3. Delegate

One of the vices most managers contract is fear of delegation, stemming from the fear that things may not be done as “perfectly” as you imagine yourself doing them. Apart from being immensely time-consuming, this fear is going to unsettle the team dynamics. Understand that you are no longer an employee, working more or less in isolation responsible for delegating that tasks assigned to you. Your role has now expanded to that of a manager, which entails you assigning goals and tasks to the team as a whole, and helping them achieve these goals.
If you do feel like you can relate to being a manager who find it hard to delegate, odds are you also find it hard to not micromanage, once you do succeed in delegating. That too, can be detrimental to the progress (and spirit) of your team. Give your team the credit they deserve, and once you have delegated the task, give them the independence (and assistance) they need to be able to accomplish it.

4. Invest time “in” your team

Time management would probably figure as the prime skill for managers. And while you’re teaching yourself how to manage time, ensure that you figure out time slots for one to one interaction with your team members on a fortnightly/ monthly basis. Even if it is a fifteen / twenty-minute long interaction, it is enough for you to take stalk about progress and challenges with regard to individual team members. This helps not only you in solving problems more efficiently, it also makes your employees feel valued, and importantly, anchored. Being a manager and being a mentor should ideally go hand in hand.

Apart from individual meetings, hosting team lunches, dinners once every two or three months just to build team cohesiveness is not a bad idea either.

5. Work on your interpersonal and communication skills

How you communicate, and put your thoughts across as a manager is pivotal to how much work you are able to motivate your team to do. “Interpersonal skills and communication skills lie at the center of human-based managerial considerations. Good managers understand not only what they are trying to say but also the broader context and implications of saying it. Empathy, self-reflection, situational awareness, and charisma all play integral roles in communicating effectively and positively.”
[Source: Boundless. “Interpersonal Skills of Successful Managers.” ]

While you will most certainly have to make unpopular choices as well, you don’t necessarily have to end up being disliked by team for having implemented these tough choices. What is tougher than making those choices is communicating them ‘effectively’, and ‘positively’, as the excerpt above puts it.

6. Find yourself a mentor

Irrespective of what stage you are in your career, you will always need a mentor. More so when you find yourself stepping into the shoes of a role that needs you to do a lot of mentoring. Odds are, you already do have a mentor, if you don’t, now is the perfect time to find yourself one. When we say “find yourself one”, we do not mean it in the casual language that it implies.

A mentor needn’t necessarily be very hard to find. Think of all the people whose advice and support has helped you grow in your career. It could be one of them, or a few of them you look towards as your mentors. It need not be a very formal process, but resuming communication with them (if you’ve fallen out of touch), and keeping at it, so that you may reach out to them when you need help with tricky situations. You know that in all probability they’ve been there before you, and would know intuitively the dynamics of most situations you might find yourself in.

7. Lead by example

Be a leader, not a boss. Being a boss and being a leader could mean two wholly different things. The plan is, to show your team that you are very much a part of the team and at the helm of affairs. The best way to manage your people and motivate them to be their best is by being more of a leader and less of a boss. No to imposing yourself, stating through overt and covert ways, “who the boss is”, yes to communication, negotiation, trust and motivation. If you’ve ever been bossed by your boss, you know exactly what not to do. But, even the best of us need to be reminded at times.
The best way to get the best out of your team is to lead by example. Inspire your team by being everything you expect from them!

Don’t be too hard on yourself and try not to self-impose any pressure. Like everything else, this too is a learning process and you will learn as you grow in your new role. Don’t forget to remind yourself you’ve been chosen for this role because you CAN do it!
Have tips for the first time managers who might be reading this? Let us know!

Five Strategies to shift from a Cost Cutting to a Business Growth mindset through Operational Excellence – Business Operations

Five Strategies to shift from a Cost Cutting to a Business Growth mindset through Operational Excellence – Business Operations

by | Nov 20, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

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Do more with less is a common refrain in any margin focused organization. But this management guidance should come with a big “Handle with Care” sticker. In the enthusiasm to meet cost cutting targets, sometimes organizations forget the “doing more” part and only focus on the “with less” part. By the time, the realization sets in that the growth engine has stalled, it is too late. And most likely, you are left with an organizational culture where “fear” rules supreme and “fun” is a word that belongs outside the work-place. Result – Bottom line improves in the short-term but starts declining after reaching a threshold. With stagnant or diminishing top-line, no amount of cost cutting can help improve profits dramatically after a certain point.

High performance is multi-dimensional – putting the entire organization’s focus on just costs is counter-productive. While margin improvement is crucial, good solid revenue growth is even more important to build a sustainable, profitable business. And these two goals should not be in conflict with each other. With some discipline and mindset changes enforced in day-to-day business operations, one can successfully do the balancing act so that the organization does not lose its focus on growing revenues while keeping a tight control on costs.

The entire business framework that you work in can be used to influence changes in the right direction. Here are five strategies that I have seen business leaders use successfully to shift the organization to a revenue growth mindset in no particular order:

Strategy 1: Budgeting – Put your money where growth is – The key to building a high-performance and growth focused culture is to make sure you consider “‘what“ and “how“ you will get to your destination – the clear guidelines of what you need to do now to reach where you want to be in a specific timeline. And, what better place to define this than in your annual business budget. For example what are the core competencies that you need to develop in the current year so that the growth for the next two-three years are secured? What investments of the previous year have not achieved desired results and needs a change in strategy? What partners and channels needed to be cultivated in current year to be able to stay competitive in the market? While a lot of attention is given on the cost items to achieve the top line for the current year, not much attention is given to the few investments that are needed to accelerate the growth for the longer term. Budgeting is a great tool to ensure that the organization is well prepared and aligned for growth.

Strategy 2: Granularity of Growth – Identify the Growth Drivers –  Research shows that having multiple avenues to growth pays off during good times and bad.  In the book – Granularity of Growth (Wiley, April 2008), the authors identified that increased market-share is seldom a driver of growth. They contend, instead, that growth is driven by where a company chooses to compete: which market segments it participates in and how much merger-and-acquisition activity it pursues in these markets. The key is to focus on granularity, to breakdown big-picture strategy into its smallest relevant components. To uncover pockets of opportunity, executives need to dig down to deeper levels of their businesses and organizations. And of course, get the execution plan in place for the opportunities identified.

Strategy 3: Clarion Call – Aligning the Organization to the Vision – It is critical that every employee knows and understands the vision of the organization and the strategy for growth. Re-orienting people is not an easy job but it can be done if the leadership can clearly articulate the problem statement behind the vision and the urgent changes that are needed to get everyone on the board. The idea here is to get people really involved and committed to growth – logic and reason have their place, but in initiatives like this the emotions of people have to be tapped. Hence the need for a clarion call (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clarion_call – Appeal, urgent call to action).  And also the need for a re-organization too – to move your best people (sales, operations, delivery) from low growth or stagnant business areas to high growth areas to leverage your talent and shake off the inertia.

Strategy 4: Platform for Ideas – Make Innovation more than a buzz word – Innovation is the Petri dish for exponential growth. But without a specific team accountable for innovation (which could be new product ideas, new business models, new markets, new acquisitions or new competencies) the focus on exponential growth is lost in the day-to-day block and tackle for meeting the short-term business targets. One person in the senior leadership should have the mandate to lead this team and the authority to champion and approve initiatives that are separate from the company’s core business and to execute on these initiatives. This provides an ecosystem of a structure, time and resources for a “start-up” within the larger organization to help move beyond the comfort zone and also future-proof the business against risks to existing business.

Strategy 5: Metrics and Rewards –Targets breed Performance – Coming to my favorite topic, setting metrics and commensurate rewards is an important lever to quickly drive and arrive at the behavior needed to go beyond just incremental growth.  For example – setting a target of 5% revenue growth year on year with a slightly higher target for profits is quite acceptable but this can be achieved by a little more push on existing services or products. There is no compelling need to look for completely new sources of revenue or new business models. What is needed here is BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals), metrics that can be used to track and measure not only the results but the investments, resources and behaviors that are needed to achieve the goals and of course, equally Big rewards to excite and enthuse the teams to think differently, get out of their comfort zone and act like entrepreneurs.

Profitable double-digit growth can become a possibility and not just a fluke. By thinking proactively and building growth into day-to-day business operations, the cost cutting trap can be avoided. A growth oriented mindset can indeed become part of the organization culture when the management plans and puts in place the systems to ensure that growth opportunities are identified and pursued as diligently as costs are controlled.

What have I missed? What growth strategies have you seen work? How and what have you factored in your plans for next year to enable double-digit growth? I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Picture courtesy : http://www.flickr.com/photos/ytueresburroyyomemonto/2687124044/

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