Effective Feedback

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Thomas E. Poulin
July 22, 2024

Public sector organizations can excel if everyone is engaged. The reality is some employees might not be as effective and efficient as they might be. Others might mistakenly imagine they are highly effective and efficient, though others note performance issues. To remedy this, public sector leaders need to provide effective feedback aimed at helping the employee to not only survive, but to thrive. This should have the effect of making the agency stronger, and this in turn should optimize service delivery to the community.

Providing Feedback

Feedback should not be viewed as a negative. In its basic form, discipline should be neutral. Discipline includes any and all actions taken to correct underperformance, support solid performance and encourage better performance in the future. Feedback must be provided in the same way, focusing on both strong and weak behaviors. The goal is to have employees reflect on their behavior and improve, so they perform well even in your absence. Ideally, effective feedback should promote employees’ desire for continuous improvement.

There are some general guidelines for providing feedback. First, be specific, focusing on behaviors. Saying someone is underperforming might not be helpful if they are not made aware of how they are not meeting a standard or expectation. Second, provide support to the employee as part of the feedback. Do not just tell them they need to improve. Provide some guidance or promise of support to help them meet or exceed expectations in the future. Third, make it timely, when there is time and support sufficient to improve before a performance failure occurs. Feedback during or after a crisis is often unhelpful to all. Last, make it a conversation.

Too often, feedback sessions involve calling an employee into the office, communicating that their work is unsatisfactory, then sending them out to “do it better” next time. This one-way approach is not only unlikely to be successful. It might harm relationships, destroy morale, erode motivation and perhaps drive an individual out of the agency with the talents for which you employed them. Provide opportunities for the employee to respond to any comments, giving them the chance to offer their own thoughts on how to improve. Performance improvement is more likely to happen if the employee is an active participant.

Receiving Feedback

Marshall Goldsmith has been writing about feedback for many years. He suggests we not only have to be capable of providing feedback, but also of asking for it. There are several steps he believes are necessary for receiving feedback effectively, and transforming it into improved performance.

First, we must be ready to ask for feedback if others do not provide it. Ask your superiors, your peers and your subordinates what you do well, what you do that could be improved and what should you not be doing. Second, thank them for the feedback. Let them know you appreciate them taking the time to share their thoughts with you. This will encourage further feedback in the future. Third, reflect on the feedback. This is more than just thinking about it briefly. You must try to be objective, reflecting on all comments, determining what you could do to avoid repeating any behaviors viewed as negative, seeking out ways to repeat any positive feedback received. Fourth, we must act on the feedback, finding a way to make these new positive behaviors a good habit, and breaking any bad habits. Last, we must provide an update to those who provided the feedback. Essentially, give them feedback on their feedback. Let them know how you integrated it into your life. This lets them know the value of providing feedback, perhaps encouraging them to do it better in the future and maybe even influencing them to ask for feedback on their own.

Life Lessons

On a late-night talk show, Hollywood legend Charleton Heston was speaking about a bad review he received for a play with another actor from the same production—acting legend Laurence Olivier. Heston was struck hard by the harsh comments, remarking to Olivier that he (Heston) would just have to learn to ignore the bad reviews. Olivier smiled and said that was too easy—it was more important to learn to ignore the good reviews.

We cannot become complacent about our performance, or defensive about critical comments. This means we need to consider the feedback provided, learning to not live off past successes. That is the path to complacency, to stagnation and to failure. To be effective public sector leaders, we must learn to give feedback, to receive feedback, and to grow with both. This makes us more productive, our agencies more effective and takes our service delivery to higher levels of quality for the community.

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Author: Thomas E. Poulin, PhD, SHRM-CP, IPMA-CP is a training and development consultant, independent scholar, and adjunct faculty member. He served in local government for over 30 years, and has been teaching and consulting at the graduate level since 2004. He served two terms as President of the Hampton Roads Chapter of ASPA. He may be reached at [email protected]

 

 

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