In this new episode of Vecteur H, the program dedicated to HR issues broadcast in partnership with Isarta, Nathalie Carrier, Senior Talent Assessment Consultant at Humance, reveals the best practices for giving positive feedback to employees. An exercise that is not as easy as it seems.
Giving feedback to a manager can be as difficult as receiving it. Nathalie Carrier knows all about it, as she coaches leaders (potential assessment, career management mandate and transformation strategy) with the firm Humance, which “humanizes performance”. For her, the best image of feedback is a gift.
To give a gift, you take the time to focus on the needs of the person you want to give it to. And once given, the person does what they want with it and can react in different ways: emotion, surprise, joy, disappointment, etc.,” she says.
This is an indirect way of telling managers that feedback is something to prepare for! It must be said that the exercise is far from obvious and often makes people nervous. Even if this responsibility falls to managers and is an integral part of their job, it is never easy to meet the eyes of the person to whom the feedback is given, especially if it is negative.
A dance of three
According to Nathalie Carrier, it is a three-way dance:
- the organization must create the climate (place, culture, etc.) to encourage this type of interaction;
- The manager must prepare in advance. The manager must be prepared to give feedback and also to welcome the emotion in reaction;
- But the employee also has a role to play in preparing to receive it.
On this last point, she recommends this TED Talk by Sheila Heen who talks about the two needs that confront each other when receiving feedback: the need to please and the need to grow.
Positive or constructive feedback?
People wants feedback. Social networks have understood this with the constant presence of thumbs up, which allows us to express our recognition of others, a primordial need as humans. However, not all feedbacks are equal.
Its purpose is to raise awareness and bring about a change in behavior. But I find that too often we give ‘constructive’ feedback and not enough ‘positive’ feedback,” says Carrier.
Let’s see the difference:
- Positive feedback serves to increase confidence and acts as a recommendation to continue. This should account for 90% of feedback in her opinion.
- Constructive feedback is a more difficult look to receive, such as reframing a behavior. In this case, it should be taken as a gift that you need to be more successful.
Managers are sometimes tempted to use the “sandwich method”, i.e. to wrap constructive feedback in the middle of two positive ones. However, Nathalie Carrier advises against this practice:
Don’t do this anymore. It devalues and diminishes the positive feedback. You don’t know if they were sincere and it can send the wrong message,” she says.
The S.G.I.T. model
To use a culinary metaphor, she prefers to adopt a “sweet and salty” posture. Salty in terms of effect but sweet in form. In other words, to act with kindness, taking care to choose the right time, the right place and the right way to get the message across. A point developed in the book “In all frankness, adopt benevolent sincerity and become a super leader” by Kim Scott (The Radical Candor)
Another possible technique: feedback in the future. Like in a driving school (“At the next turn, you will accelerate well from the middle of the curve”), the idea is to indicate a piece of advice that the person will be able to apply concretely. This is less fatalistic than the guilt-inducing “The last time you did that, it was wrong”.
I often say that in a car, the windshield is big and the mirror is small. For example, if there is a punctuality problem with a person, it is possible to say to him: I challenge you to arrive early for your next meeting. This is an invitation to change their behaviour in the future by trying to find a solution to change”, illustrates Nathalie Carrier.
She concludes her presentation with a useful model for managers, summarized by the acronym S.G.I.T:
- Specific: The feedback must be about something that can be changed and that the person has control over
- Genuine: The person needs to feel it’s true, “Otherwise, it’s like giving a gift in a hurry,” she adds.
- Individual: feedback should be personalized and take into account each personality
- Time: Finally, you have to give yourself the time to do it right.
