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How to give feedback?

How to give feedback? The goal of feedback is to help employees improve their performance. We want employees to improve their performance. Make a valuable contribution to the team. We want our company to become a workspace where employees can communicate openly with each other in order to develop and improve their performance.

# How to give feedback?

Over the past 20 years, many companies have strived to create a motivating  feedback culture . It was often forgotten why we do it at all. Telling employees that they are missing the mark does not move the company forward. It’s not the same as helping them reach the goal.

And what about positive feedback that highlights what employees have done well? It’s really just another form of criticism. Focusing on the positive doesn’t necessarily address the weaknesses that stand in the way of better performance.

 

#1 Feedback: Shift from critic to ally.

Everyone wants to talk to an ally. Nobody wants to talk to a critic. As an ally, you show that you care, trust, and care for the employee.

So how can you make it clear that you are an ally and not a critic? It is best to observe the following three rules:

  1. have compassion
  2. Express your confidence.
  3. Request permission.

Imagine a colleague has difficulties as a team leader and doesn’t get along with a team member. Starting a conversation with an “ally” can go something like this: “That sounds really frustrating. And I know you can handle it. Shall we think through the team situation together?”

 

#2 Feedback: Identify a motivating outcome.

Once you’ve said “yes,” there’s a temptation to go back to the problem—the frustrating past. Don’t do that yet.

Instead, focus on the motivating outcome you want to create. “What is the result you are striving for?” Allow your colleague to articulate what they want to achieve for themselves and for the company. “I would like to build a high-performing team where we can communicate openly, collaborate and generate ideas.”

 

#3 Feedback: Discover hidden opportunities.

Once you and your colleague are clear about the desired outcome, you can revisit the problem. But don’t try to “solve” it, but ask: “How can this problem help us to achieve the result?”

You may discover with your co-worker that the co-worker who is labeled “disruptive” is actually the only one on the team who is willing to engage in conflict to address important issues.

 

#4 Feedback: Evaluate the chances of success.

In this step, you instruct your colleague how he can now select an action plan and how he commits to realizing it. Ask your colleague to rate their action plan’s chances of success: “On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that you will implement this plan?”

Skillful feedback can be a tool to help people identify their blind spots. This opens up opportunities for growth.

How to give feedback?

How to give feedback? You might also be interested in this agile feedback technique …

Throughout their careers, employees are taught to adapt – to the status quo, to the opinions and behaviors of others. The higher we climb the career ladder, the greater the pressure to adapt. The price employees and companies pay is a drop in engagement and the rate of innovation.

To thrive and thrive, organizations must strike a balance between compliance with formal and informal rules that provide the necessary structure, and the freedom that helps employees do their best work. Kill the stupid rule is a technique to break up too much conformity and create space for something new.

 

Why is conformity so widespread?

We learn early in life that there are tangible benefits of conforming to societal rules. When we conform, we feel accepted and part of the majority.

Conformity in the workplace takes many forms: mimicking the behavior of others in similar roles, expressing appropriate emotions, wearing appropriate clothing, condoning poor team decisions.

And all too often, giving in to peer pressure results in individuals becoming less interested in their work. This is understandable: conformity is often at odds with our true preferences and beliefs.

We get too comfortable with the status quo. In organizations, standard practices and the usual ways of thinking and acting play a crucial role in shaping performance over time.

But they can also cause us to get stuck, lose our commitment, and hamper our ability to innovate or deliver excellence.

You can break this conformity with positive feedback. Use kill the stupid rule as an agile feedback technique.

 

Agile Feedback Technique: What is Kill the stupid Rule ?

This method is used in the feedback process to identify crippling, demotivating, sales-destroying ballast and to replace it with simpler, more up-to-date procedures. This helps us to question our processes and procedures. This creates more time for customer-centric work and more agility at work.

Kill the stupid rule  helps you to identify barriers and obstacles in the form of rules with the help of input and feedback from your employees and, if possible, to eliminate them. You learn to give open and honest feedback, to question the tried and tested and to improve it.

How to give feedback? With the  Kill the stupid Rule strategy , managers can promote constructive non-conformity in the feedback process.

 

#1 Give your employees a chance to be themselves

Encourage your employees to think about what makes them authentic. This can be done right at the beginning of the feedback process.

How to give feedback? Give your employees half an hour to think about what makes them unique, what makes them authentic, and how they can express their authentic essence at work.

As a manager, you can also encourage this type of reflection when the employees are already in the company. Challenge your employees and your managers to think about what makes them unique and authentic and how they can shape their work.

Tell your employees what needs to be done, not how to do it.

Let your employees solve their problems themselves. As a leader, you can encourage authenticity by letting your employees make decisions about how to handle certain situations.

Let your employees define their tasks. The following set-up will help you here: Employees write their personal company mission statements in which they express who they are and set their goals for a certain period of time. What would I like to contribute as an employee to the success of the company.

 

#2 Encourage your employees to highlight their particular strengths

Give your employees the opportunity to recognize their strengths. You can do this best if you tailor the jobs to the strengths of the employees. Employees can design the tasks to suit the strengths of the newcomers. This ensures that employees end up where they fit in best.

How to give feedback? Discovering employees’ strengths takes time and effort.

 

#3 Challenge the status quo

And this is what maximum conformity looks like: This is how we have always done it. With Kill the stupid Rule you promote the commitment and innovation of your employees. Standard procedures are consistently questioned.

Ask “Why?” and “What if?”. Leaders who challenge the status quo in the feedback session give employees a reason to get involved and often bring new ideas that can rejuvenate the organization.

Emphasize that the company is not perfect. The emphasis that we are all human and that the company will never be perfect gives employees the freedom to constructively address non-conformity.

 

#4 Create challenging experiences

When work is low in variety and challenge, workers easily become bored and fall back into routine. And employees who find their work boring lack the motivation to perform well and creatively. With Kill the stupid Rule you create new challenges in the feedback process. With positive feedback you create a framework that promotes the commitment of your employees.

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How to give feedback?