16. When Your Nonprofit Staff Hates Feedback

We all have staff in our nonprofits which refuse to hear the feedback you provide them to improve their work performance. 
It is frustrating for you and your team.
The goal of our feedback should always be for staff improvement.
This episode provides six characteristics of feedback you want to make sure you use to enhance the changes your feedback is received.

Find more practicable tips on my website Relish Your Role. com. I have so much respect for the work you do!
Thanks for listening.

Transcript

When Your Nonprofit Staff Hates Feedback

We have all been there as nonprofit Executive Directors.

You have staff who are continually missing the mark and absolutely refuse to make use of the feedback they receive, leaving both of you frustrated and looking for the exit.

How do you make sure that the feedback you provide is received and influences future behavior?

Spoiler alert- there are no guarantees.

But you can be intentional about your approach for optimum impact.

Today’s episode will review six requirements for giving feedback which enhance your chances that your thoughts  will be heard.

You can hear the full episode at https://relishyourrole.com/16

When giving corrective feedback to staff it is important to be guided by what we know about human behavior.

We all know that people respond better to positive reinforcement than they do to negative observations.  

If you are experienced as someone who is always critical, you will be avoided - or the staff will tune out when you start to talk.  I call that the teenager response, there is an expectation for a negative interaction, so the ears are clamped shut before you begin to speak.

As a rule, if you can provide a higher ratio with more positive responses to criticism, the person you are talking to will likely be more receptive.

There are six general tips you can use to make sure your feedback is heard and used to shape future behavior.

Six Effective Feedback Tips

1.     Your feedback is specific.

2.     Your feedback is timely.

3.     Your feedback is balanced.

4.     Your feedback is based on your experience.

5.     Your feedback is based on behavior observed not motivations assumed.

6.     Your feedback leaves space for interaction.

Specific Feedback

When you are providing feedback, you want to be as precise as possible.  It is best to tie your feedback to a specific behavior or recurring patterns of behavior and be as explicit about what you are responding to.

The more specific you are, the greater the chance will be that the person can understand what you are talking about.  Statements like “you always…” makes it easy to get sidetrack about how often the behavior occurs and takes the focus away from the behavior itself.

Timely feedback

The closer you can provide feedback to the behavior or event itself the more likely it will be received.  Memory can exaggerate things or end up with you bringing in other things that are not directly tied to the behavior.  

While it is ideal that you provide feedback as close to the time when the behavior occurs, you also need to be intentional about the timing.

It is usually a mistake to provide feedback immediately after the problematic behavior happened.  If you are in the moment and purely reacting- it is likely you are not providing thoughtful, corrective feedback. 

 The purpose of giving feedback is that it helps the staff identify, understand and make adjustments so it does not occur in the future.

Most likely this will not happen if you are angry or flustered when you give feedback.  You need to think through and prepare what you are going to say.  Clearly identify the behavior which is problematic and explain why it is an issue of concern.

Ideally the concerns should be centered on the expectations for what the staff is expected to do and why they are expected to do it.  It is most impactful if you can provide feedback which explains why thee behavior is not aligned with the mission and values of the agency.

For example, we respect our clients and showing up late for an appointment is not valuing their time and can be seen as disrespectful.

You also do not want to give feedback to the staff in front of others as you are most likely going to trigger a defensive rather than accepting posture.  Remember your goal is that you are heard in the spirit of partnership to improve behavior, not to scold.

Timing is key to make sure you create a receptive environment.

Balanced feedback

This is a tricky balancing act.  You need to be frank about the behavior which is troublesome but if you are just unleashing a string of all the ways the person is not meeting expectations they will probably just stop listening.

On the other hand, if you disguise the corrective feedback in a listing of all the things they do well, your major point may be lost.

So, the balance is to identify the strengths and the gains made as well as the areas which need to be addressed.  Ideally you can place the problematic issue in the context of the things they do well and how the specific behavior you need to address is in contrast to their other skills.

Your purpose is for improvement, and you want to build on their strengths so it should be natural  to reference those strengths when identifying areas for improvement.

Remember no one is all bad or all wonderful.  The problematic behavior should be presented as something which is counter to all their strengths.

Base Feedback on your Experience 

Feedback is most effective when it is honest and based on what is personally experienced.  If there are concerns about how the staff is interacting with their peers, the feedback you provide has to be rooted in your experience of the person.  If you see a pattern of them being dismissive or not working collaboratively with others, the feedback has to be tied to what you, as the manager, experience.

It is a lose/lose proposition to provide feedback on behavior you have no firsthand experience with.  You do experience the impact of late reports, of staff complaints and that you can respond to.  What you cannot respond to is behavior you do not see.

This is not to say you do not address those things, but you are sharing with them the impact of their behavior rather than discussing the behavior itself.

It is one thing to provide feedback that you are receiving negative reports, or that the expected work is not completed.  Those things you can own and have experienced.  

But you will find things devolve quickly fi the feedback is not based on your own experience. When you respond to someone else’s perception of behavior you can easily be seen as taking sides.

Feedback Based on Observed Behavior not Guessed Motivation

This is where things usually break bad.  Your responsibility is to provide feedback on the staff member’s behavior.  You want to be clear about describing the behavior, not make generalizations  because you do not know why the person behaved in the way they did.  

When you ascribe motivations to behavior like saying,  “you don’t like your manager, so you did not follow the instructions you were given’.  You are stepping into the realm of conjecture.  You really do not know why people do what they do.  You can only speak to what you observed and its impact.

Your goal is to help them become self-aware and see the impact of their behavior.  You may shift to more of a coaching mode in the process and help them connect their behavior to their motivations but that is for the person you are providing feedback to do.  

It is shaky ground to wade into guessing someone’s motivation and should be avoided if you want to maintain an open and productive relationship. 

Healthy Feedback allows for interaction

You want to provide feedback to enhance self-awareness and growth.  In order to set the stage for this, it needs to be given in the context of a dialogue.  This means there has to be the opportunity for discussion.

You need to listen more than you speak.

Allow the person to share their perspective.  This is an opportunity to learn more about them and their understanding of why they did what they did.

You help them process, come to a common understanding of what the consequences of their behavior was, and think through ways a different response can occur in the future.

The positive relationship and alignment of expectations comes through dialogue and interaction.

Make sure you give feedback in a way which opens people up and does not shut them down.

Like so many elements of leadership- it takes thoughtful intentionality and planning.

It is a key element of being an effective leader.

You can do it and I am here to help.