Aside from performance reviews, there are times in which constructive feedback will need to be provided to staff because they are not meeting your expectations. I like to call this, “difficult talk Fridays”. Giving feedback to staff is difficult enough, giving feedback to staff that are not self aware seems impossible.
People are complex and they perhaps are not aware of where they are failing to meet the requirements of their job. To be clear, this is typically accidentally undesirable behavior from an employee.
Self-awareness is the ability to understand ones thoughts, experiences, and abilities. Simply put in a Greek aphorism, “know thyself”. Psychologist Daniel Goleman proposed self-awareness as “knowing one’s internal states, preference, resources, and intuitions.” in his best-selling book “Emotional Intelligence.”
What are the different scenarios encountered when feedback is required?
In the workplace there are two prominent scenarios where self-awareness can be lacking:
- The staff member that means well, but their work in not of acceptable quality
- The staff member that does not necessarily have performance issues, but their communication or behavior with their peers causes problems
Both of these scenarios are considered to be undesirable behavior by an employee. But, they may have no idea that they are doing it, or what the impact is.
Self-awareness is important in the workplace because it is essential for an employee to understand where they stand and what opportunities they have for improvement and their impact on others.
If an employee can’t identify what their overall impact is on their team, then there is a risk to the management team that there will be discourse when participating in team. A teammate may ‘call out’ the low performer
We aren’t brilliant at identifying that we are not self-aware either. In a study discussed in Harvard Business Review, while the majority of people believe that they are self-aware, the reality is that only 10-15% of employees fall in to this category. Since self-awareness is a truly rare quality, it will have an impact on us as middle managers because we will need to address the deficit in an employee’s understanding.
Failure to meet expectations will not have to be addressed in every instance, rather pick your battles. You will be further ahead if you have solid examples.
When is this behavior a problem?
It becomes a problem that a middle manager must address when an employee:
- Will not listen or accept critical feedback
- They have an inflated perception of their performance or team contributions
- They are quick to blame others, while overstating their minor successes.
Obviously, all of the above is detrimental to the workplace and can lead to poor team outcomes such a negative interactions between employees, incomplete or late projects of questionable quality, overall poor morale.
Here are 8 ways to address this issue as a middle manager:
- Are they in a position where they would accept mentorship or coaching?
This is an ideal approach because it will support the employee and hopefully get them to a place that they will be able to meet your specific requirements.
There are two sticking points to this: how well you feel as a manager to mentor them, and how open to mentorship they are. Candidate selection for mentorship is important. If they already feel like they know everything, then it is likely a futile effort. I always like to at least offer support when I am giving constructive feedback to see if they will jump on the opportunity. Because I know that individuals are unlikely to take up the offer when upset or disagree with feedback in a formal meeting, I will always circle back a week later to discuss assistance again. This gives them an opportunity to digest the information provided in the previous meeting and they be more willing to accept coaching.
But because we are discussing the individuals who lack self-awareness, I have found that this approach is only moderately successful. It’s absolutely worth the try, because if you end up having to performance manage the individual you can at least say you have tried to offer coaching or assistance.
- Investigate
Did a previous organization have a different work culture? Did a previous Manager allow the current behavior or quality of work to continue without follow-up and documentation of the counseling? Download a FREE Feedback Prep Form for a template to take notes with to summarize in a counseling letter.
- Persistence is key.
They may not hear you the first time. Or second time. Perhaps, the third? This inflated perception of themselves and their contributions is hard to overcome.
You may need to have several chats – or good examples to realize they have faults. Keep the messaging simple. Don’t quibble over the details, simple and straightforward.
If you get taken off message because they want to nitpick the performance of each team member, the true message will get lost.
- Pick your battles.
A good battle plan may involve hanging back and waiting for the right moment. Have solid examples with true poor outcomes or consequences of their poor performance. Were they argumentative with a colleague or client? The consequences need to be tied to a poor outcome.
It may be easy to dismiss one project that ran over the timeline, but multiple failures to produce deliverables on time makes excuses harder to come by…though there is likely going to be an attempt.
- Is this current behavior something the individual may professionally mature out of?
I like the expression, ‘professional immaturity’. You have to learn how to act and behave in the workplace, but also within in the organizational culture of where you are employed. Slightly different rules depending on where you go.
Learning how to send professional emails is not a course taught in College. It so should not come as a surprise that new staff, typically ‘those millennials’, do not instinctively know how to act in a professional setting. The professional world is a different language with a lot of unspoken codes of conduct.
I had to teach a shiny new graduate how to use Microsoft Outlook one day. They didn’t know how to ask, because it’s just email and they should understand, right? They didn’t realize that they didn’t understand the nuances of it.
Start with the benefit of the doubt that the staff member with undesirable behavior may just need some time to professionally mature. I know I was an idiot at 25, and you probably did some cringe-worthy things as well.
- Be gentle, but direct
When dealing with someone who is likely to take offense to what you have to say, gentle, but direct is a good way to go.
“You may be more effective if you did X approach instead”. Rather than a harsher, ‘you made this mistake ’.
It is an ideal approach when they do not grasp the feedback on poor performance that was not detrimental to entire project, they just did not perform to the same standard as their peers.
- Assess if they are actually open to critical feedback.
Are you just going to come across as the bad guy where it won’t actually serve a higher purpose or help? Is it just denials without any accountability on their part?
I would keep documenting where they have not met expectations. Continue to meet with them to address the concerns and set clear expectations for their work quality, quantity, and timelines. Remember to follow up with a letter of counseling to protect both yourself and the staff member of the conversation that occurred.
Your HR Business Partner is a good resource for crafting a letter of counseling for the individual so that it aligns with company policy. I have created a template for recording pertinent information following the conversation so that it can be easily crafting in to a letter of documented counseling. Download your FREE Feedback Prep Form to create a guideline for the conversation and for creating a documented counseling letter as a follow-up.
The reality is that this may progress in to having to performance manage the individual which will require difficult conversations that require preparation beforehand. Use this tool to structure the conversation.
- Tailor the criticism.
If they will only hear one message, make sure it is the right one, and don’t do a feedback crap sandwich. Praise – criticism – praise. It will get lost and only confuse the message because with someone who is not self-aware. The criticism may be overly minimized while they focus on the praise.
Next steps for following up
Great, you’ve got the difficult discussions out of the way. Remember to schedule check-ins when you see the negative behavior coming out again.
A great ways to follow-up, is to also schedule meetings when you “catch them being good”. When you see a behavior that is desirable, point it out! If there was a better outcome on a team project because they listened better, circle back and point it out.
This will take constant vigilance on your part and likely follow up conversations as reminders – but it can be done.