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Tag Archives: 360 degree feedback

How to get honest feedback from your peers without putting them on the spot?

Managers who encourage their employees to give honest feedback mostly find themselves improving the accuracy and productivity of their quality of work. I know I have. Feedbacks often increase employee satisfaction with their job by providing them with a voice and valuing their opinions.

In my last blog, I have identified many hurdles due to which people refrain from giving their honest feedback to you. And hence, in this blog, I will provide you with few tips and tricks through which you can get honest feedback from your peers, and eliminate any hurdles that you might encounter.

Ask for it: Tell people you want their feedback. When people feel that their opinions and observations may be used against them or that your feelings may be easily hurt, they withhold their feedback. Thus, let them know that you consider their personal opinions, questions, and disagreements, not only useful but also necessary. If you are hesitant to ask for their direct feedback, try to use 360-degree feedback with the help of your HR Department. In that process, your peers, superiors, subordinates, customers, suppliers, and sales staff provide their feedbacks anonymously to you. So, you are more likely to get their honest feedback.

Be specific: When you ask for someone’s feedback, they are mostly confused, as they don’t know where to start. That doesn’t mean that they don’t want to provide their feedback, its just that they don’t know what you are looking for. Thus, before asking for the feedback, its your job to identify the areas in which you want the feedback. If you want personal feedback, you might say, “I am trying to improve my presentation’s delivery and am interested in knowing how confident I appeared in today’s meeting.” Similarly, if you want only feedback pertaining to the organization of your ideas, then specify that topic.

Make it regular: Let’s assume that you are working for a hands-off manager, who gives you work flexibility, and doesn’t meet with you that often. Now, imagine a situation where he suddenly stops by your office and asks for your honest feedback. What would you do in that situation? I don’t know about you, but I would be baffled, if my manager doesn’t have the habit of asking my feedback regularly. Instead of giving him my feedback, I might think that I am in some kind of a trouble. Won’t you? Your employees will have the same mindset. Thus, it is very important for us, as a manager, to set aside some time for regularly scheduled feedback sessions. These sessions will not only help you get your employee’s honest feedback, but it will also show your employees that you value their feedback and care for their opinions.

These are some of few ideas through which you can make it easier for your peers to provide their honest feedback to you. Wait for my next blog, where I will provide you with some more insight on effective feedback taking. In the meanwhile, if you have any other ideas through which we can improve the process of feedback taking, then please share it through your comments here. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

5 ways to become the best manager for your employees

29 Apr

In my last blog post, I have talked about few earlier signs of your management failures. And hence, in this blog post, I will provide you with a formula to handle each issue separately, and how you can turn around these situations in your favor.

Learn from the exit interview: As I have mentioned in my last blog, if you are having a higher turnover rate in your team as compared to your organization/department, then you might want to analyze your leadership style. Try to get as much information as you can through the exit interview. If these exit interviews are taken by the HR Department, then work with your HR personnel to include your questions in the mix. Try to include questions, which can give you some inside scoop on your leadership style. For example: Few problematic communication practices, managerial feedback, etc. Depending on their inputs you should try to change your leadership style.

Learn from your 360 review: Often 360 degree multi-rater assessments or employee’s feedback surveys will provide you with the valuable input about your management style in general. So, make sure that you take those survey results seriously, and take out some time to act on the improvement opportunities mentioned in the survey. Look for things like, your engagement rating with your employees, your general relationships with others, etc. At worst, it will provide you few pointers on where you are going wrong, and how to improve your management style.

Communicate effectively: As I have mentioned in my last blog, if you are having multiple employee’s disputes as compared to other teams, then you might not be a good manager. In order to improve your situation, you might want to increase your communication with your team members. Make sure that you clearly communicate your decisions to your team. Often times miscommunication can generate a sense of inequity or unfairness about these decisions, leading to disputes that tend to end up in the lap of Human Resources departments because they relate to the application of written company policies or procedures. Thus, you should try to communicate with each team member at least once a day. Make it a practice. Also, you should schedule at least one-on-one during a month, where you just talk about your employee’s personal growth and any concerns that he/she might have. This approach will help you to communicate with your team effectively.

Frequent performance reviews: Good manager will always schedule frequent one-on-one with their employees. As a manager, you should always provide your feedback to your employees on an ongoing basis, throughout the year or throughout the period for which the review is being conducted. So, when it’s the time of doing the performance review, its mere a documentation of what you have been talking about during the entire year. If you follow this approach, then you can at least reduce the amount of conflicts between you and your employees during the performance review period.

Lead by example: Let’s assume that you might be one of those bad managers and you might have developed a bad reputation for territoriality, or being “difficult to work with”. Even then, it is never too late to change. Though it might take some time to change other’s perception of you, you can do that. Just try to hold yourself to higher standards. When someone is completely bypassing you in the decision making process, try to talk with that person and identify their issues. It might take some communication and extra efforts in resolving these issues, but you can lead by example. You can show your team members and others in the organization on how you follow your company’s processes, and why your inputs are valuable in the decision making process. If you keep on following this practice, I am sure that you can regain their trust, and improve the work throughput.

I hope, my blog has helped you in seeing some of the general shortcomings of a manager, and helped you become the best manager for your employees. Please share your comments here, if you agree/disagree with my point of view.

Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi