INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS
Feedback:
Evaluation challenge The science and art of receiving feedback as a way to improve performance management within organizations is examined by Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone Illustration: cAMERON LAW
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onest performance conversations don’t happen – at least not as frequently as they should. It is a complaint that crosses industries, spans geographies, runs up and down the hierarchy, and suffuses organizations large and small. Candid conversations about performance are avoided, softpedaled or stumbled through. In fact, according to a 2010 study on the State of Performance Management, a survey of 750 HR professionals by Sibson
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Consulting and World at Work, 63% of executives believe that the biggest challenge of performance management is managers’ unwillingness to have difficult conversations. And, according to another study by Globoforce (2011), even when managers tackle them with the best of intentions and a solid set of skills, employees are often left feeling resentful or discouraged – 55% of employees believe their review is inaccurate or unfair, and one in four say it is the thing they dread most in their working lives. You already know the challenges; you live them in your organization. We
all do. And our usual approaches do not seem to make much of a dent in the problem. Below are three common mistakes managers make in trying to address the problem and what can be done instead to both dramatically improve the quality of conversations in your organization and accelerate your own learning as a leader.
1. We teach giving but not receiving The usual response to the organizational feedback challenge is to teach managers how to give feedback more skilfully – how to frame
Dialogue | Jun/Aug 2014