Giving feedback

I am Siddharth Patel, a 40 year old manager in the State Bank. I find that my staff is not working as per my expectations. However, when I try to tell them anything, they respond in a very aggressive tone. I also came to know that my office staff is very much disturbed by the way that I supervise their work and the manner in which I give them feedback. They feel that my only goal is to humiliate or embarrass them rather than to help them. They find me to be rude and insensitive. As a result, I have stopped interacting with them. Please advise me on how to give feedback to my staff.

Feedback is giving information to the people essential to keep their efforts on track. It means the exchange of data about how one part of a system is working with the understanding that one part affects all others in the system so that any part heading off course could be changed for the better. In an organization, everyone is part of the system and so feedback is the lifeblood of the organization – the exchange of information that lets people know if the job they are doing is going well or needs to be fine-tuned, upgraded, or redirected entirely. Without feedback people are in the dark, they have no idea how they stand with their boss, with their peers, or what is expected of them and problems will only get worse as time passes. Criticism is also an important task, most dreaded and often put off. The poor mastery of the art of giving feedback is a deficiency leading to a great loss. It affects the effectiveness, satisfaction, and productivity of people at work. Indeed, how criticisms are given and received goes a long way in determining how satisfied people are with their work, with those they work with, and with those to whom they are responsible. Often criticisms are voiced as personal attacks rather than complaints that can be acted upon. The disgust, sarcasm, and contempt can give rise to dodging of responsibility and stonewalling or the embittered passive resistance that comes from feeling unfairly treated. It leaves the other person receiving it feeling helpless and angry. Sometimes people are too willing to criticize, but frugal with praise, leaving their employees feeling that they only hear about how they are doing when they make a mistake. This propensity is compounded when you fail to give feedback for a long time. Most problems in an employee’s performance are not sudden; they develop slowly over time. Too often, people criticize only when things boil over, when they get too angry to contain themselves. This results in giving criticism in a biting sarcastic way which backfires. 

The first task is to be sensitive to the impact of what you say and how you say it on the person at the receiving end. If you give feedback in a hurtful fashion like putting a person down, it opens a way of the emotional backlash of resentment, bitterness, defensiveness, and distance. The second is to give feedback in private and face to face. This gives the other person an opportunity for a response or clarification. The third is to be able to offer a solution or at least the next step; otherwise, it leaves the recipient frustrated, demoralized, or demotivated. You should also be very specific and give feedback about a significant incident, an event that illustrates a key problem that needs changing, or a pattern of deficiency such as the inability to do certain parts of a job well. It demoralizes people just to hear that they are doing something wrong without knowing what the specifics are so they can change. Focus on the specifics without beating around the bush or being oblique or evasive; it will muddy the real message. You should also focus on what the person has done and can do rather than reading a mark of character into a job poorly done. A character attack – calling someone stupid or incompetent misses the point. You immediately put them on the defensive so that he is no longer receptive to what you have to tell him about how to do things better. When people believe that their failures are due to some unchangeable deficit in themselves, they lose hope and stop trying. The basic belief that leads to optimism, is that setbacks or failures are due to circumstances that e can do something about to change for the better.