"Express both good and bad input with judgment-free specificity so
that it has a more positive, lasting impact on the employee."
that it has a more positive, lasting impact on the employee."
Old-school managers fold their arms across their chest, bark orders and tell workers what they're doing wrong. With a perpetual scowl on their face, these managers point out every mistake but rarely dish out praise.
Today's more enlightened supervisors, by contrast, give feedback with an eye toward motivating employees. They treat feedback as a way to help fuel good performance, teach new skills and provide guidance that leads to improvement.
- Feedback is defined as the process of providing information to your employees about their past behavior in order to influence their future behavior. Effective feedback requires mutual understanding. Employees must understand that its purpose is to help them excel, not find fault or shake their confidence. Supervisors must realize that in order for their input to make a positive impact, they must support it with evidence, examples and observations.
- To deliver feedback that influences employee behavior, you need to make sure it's based on verifiable data. This includes firsthand observation along with collecting feedback in a structured, confidential manner from an individual's peers. You may even want to survey customers, vendors, suppliers or others who interact regularly with your employees.