How to give Negative Feedback in a Positive Way.....
- waynefarran
- May 23, 2014
- 2 min read
Negative feedback, this is perhaps one of the hardest things to give to your staff. It can be very hard to give feedback to an employee when they feel that they have been doing a great job.
Let’s face it, none of us like being told that we are not doing the right thing and or that we could be doing better. This being said, if you need to give such feedback you better do so in a constructive way. The ultimate aim is to have the employee learn from their mistakes and or shortfalls so they can move forward in a positive way.
When I give negative feedback to an employee, I always look to address the situation by providing a balanced prospective. We all have our positive and negative aspects; so simply launching out with the negative feedback is a recipe to get the discussion off to a bad start.
There are numerous ways to go about giving negative feedback in a positive way. This being said I have found that the two models below give a good overview on what to consider and prepare for prior to the discussion.
Boost:
Balanced — start the discussion with positives, then address the negatives
Observed — discuss the observed behaviour, not the persons personality Ownership — take ownership & offer to help the employee to improve
Specific — give factual information to validate the negative feedback
Timing — when possible give feedback early to address the issue; not at a later date
Real: - for specific individual issues
Reality — discuss what ‘really’ happened Effect — what impact did the incident/issue have on the situation Acknowledgement — necessary to reinforce the point Lift — encourage and motivate the employee to improve and move forward
At the end of the day, if you can motivate a good staff member to move forward and improve it’s better than going through possible continual issues in the work place.
Hint: Don’t try to remember all of the above Acronyms and topical points; prior to the meeting make a simple word file and or template with the above key points along with issues that need to be raised against each point.
Wayne~
