Feedback: Whose Motives?

Managers who are good coaches are like good journalists: they listen first and investigate the who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Remember that the real task is to stimulate thinking and help the person across the table gain clarity about some issue of concern. No matter how much we know, we can't stuff it into the other person's heart and mind. When we're on the other side of the table, what do we want?

A sounding board and a mirror.

What to do?

 Listen for gaps in logic, wandering thoughts, missing information, and lurking dangers that seem unknown. Help the person expand upon the answers to your questions, rethink the answers, or find even better ones.

Whose Motives?

We humans love to give advice. Why?

To use and show off our knowledge; boost our own sense of self; "prove" something; reduce someone else's learning curve and the pain that goes with it; or to show genuine empathy and support.

Some of these reasons are honorable while others are really "all about us." Pausing to check our own motives can help us head off the temptation to offer "help" that isn't really helpful.

Being asked for feedback is a sign of respect. Staying focused on the other person's needs is the way to respond in kind.

Be careful when you give advice--someone is liable to take it.

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It's natural to think about feedback in the context of your company's performance management "systems" and the always-agonizing annual performance review. Check out John Ingham's Improving and Innovating Performance Management.

Comments

[Dan Erwin]

Steve: Because a great deal of my history and work has been around coaching and feedback, I'm profoundly sensitized to these issues. I think that you have accurately nailed the issues of defining the coach's task and appropriately identified the "what to do" issues.

I certainly agree with your discussion of motives, however, I have a mixed response to "checking my motives" at the door. The upside is that as one client once said, "I have a big parent." An industrial psychologist, she used it positively, although I think it can also get in the way, creating dependency relations rather liberation.

But the more serious downside in my mind is the discussion of motives from the standpoint of "showing off," etc. I have gradually come to the conclusion that I will ignore that side of motives, and keep emphasizing the constructive side. In other words, rhetorically, I want to take the downside off the table. . . with the assumption that it will get in the way less and less. As a former university pastor, but with a Big Ten PhD in rhetoric, I'm very aware that we create our worlds. That background drives my caution. . . Although I have no data or study at hand, my education supports my caution at hand. What do you think about that differing perspective?

[Chris Witt]

Steve,

I endured more encounter groups and the like during the sixties and early seventies than I care to remember. They were usually brutal -- "brutal honesty" was a highly touted virtue in those days -- and painful. Giving feedback was one of the main tools. And feedback always meant negative feedback. It was a way of pointing out something bad/deficient about the other person, something he or she obviously didn't already know.

As you might guess, I hate the word.

I believe in helping people understand how they and their actions are perceived. And I like your approach -- being a sounding board and a mirror. Since I work mostly with people who are giving speeches and who are therefore already feeling vulnerable and threatened, I have to work especially hard to be a kindly sounding board and mirror.

Chris

[Steve Roesler]

Dan,

Help me out with the main theme leading up to the question; I don't thinking I'm following accurately.

Steve

[Steve Roesler]

Well, Chris, I confess to having flashacks full of T-group sessions that ended up somewhere between self-awareness and self-flagellation. It still pains me to use the term "feedback" but, given its popularity, some times ya just gotta smile when it surfaces.

Also: Unless one has worked in the presentation advisor role I'm not sure how many folks realize the sensitivities and vulnerability that "presentation"clients often feel--even though they don't say it outright. It's not easy having someone come in and "mess" with your big idea, the way you've been presenting yourself for a lifetime, and having other people know it. I have a lot of admiration for clients who say, "Look, I need help." When someone says that, they're probably going to do pretty well.

[John Hunter]

When managers aim to motivate people they are in danger of creating problems. They should see their job as helping eliminate de-motivation for employees. Most of our organizations have lots of ways to turn the innate desire to do good work off.

http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2008/10/07/motivate-or-eliminate-de-motivation/