How to use feedback to drive organizational

success

Rusty LindquistV P O F H C M S T R A T E G Y & I P

B A M B O O H R

Jacob ShriarD I R E C T O R O F C O N T E N T

O F F I C E V I B E

Feedback as key to organizational progress

The most competitive economy in history

–Bersin by Deloitte

– Ram Charan Best-selling Author, World-renowned Business Advisor

FEEDBACK SYSTEMS

-Workboard

Feedback and Employee Engagement

Employee Feedback Statistics• 14.9% lower turnover rates in companies that

implement regular employee feedback.

• 2X as likely to be actively disengaged if employees are ignored by their manager.

• 65% of employees said they wanted more feedback

• 58% of managers think they give enough.

• These statistics show that there is clearly something wrong with the way feedback is done in most companies.

(source: https://www.officevibe.com/blog/infographic-employee-feedback)

According to research, employees crave feedback.

What they found was that by roughly a three to one margin, employees believe that

constructive feedback does more to improve their performance than positive feedback.

Frequent Feedback is the Key

Annual performance review is way too long to wait for feedback. Feedback needs to be

frequent and sincere.

Examples Of Companies Switching From Annual To More Frequent Feedback

Expedia

“The hope was to create a performance culture that would help to improve both individual and team performance and ultimately drive business results. The emphasis would now be on frequent feedback and coaching and to evaluate the here and now, not just the results.”

- Karen Crandall, Former Director of Compensation

Twilio

“We don’t wait until the annual performance review to give feedback. You never want to have a surprise. This is especially important with millennial workers, who really want feedback. They want to always be learning, always be growing, and they’re looking for that constant feedback. It’s not that they’re looking for constant praise, but rather they want to keep score. They want to know how they’re doing.”

- Jeff Lawson, CEO

Adobe

”The check-in is far more informal. While the check-in process is regular and on-going, it starts at the beginning of the year, since it’s tied to people having yearly expectations.”

- Donna Morris, SVP

Deloitte, Accenture, and even GE are now starting to move away from annual

reviews to more frequent feedback.

Instead of annual reviews, have regular one-on-one’s

(most people do it monthly)

One On One Meetings

• 1 hour meeting once a month to discuss informally anything on an employee’s mind.

• This is NOT a performance update. This is a conversation that is about making the employee happier and more productive at work.

Companies Swear By This Process

“…if Tim doesn’t meet with each one of his employees in the next 24 hours, I will have no choice but to fire him and to fire you. Are we clear?”

– Ben Horowitz, The Hard Things About Hard Things, pg. 102

Many well known companies including HubSpot, Moz, and Atlassian, use them, too.

How To Run Your One-On-One

• 10-minutes: Informal catch up

• 20-minutes: Employee’s agenda items

• 20-minutes: Manager’s notes and questions

• 10-minutes: Action plan and next steps

Action Plan Is Most Important

• What can I hold you accountable for next time we talk?

• What can I be accountable to you for the next time we talk?

Feedback and Culture

Culture is the story we tell ourselves, and each other, about where we work.

- Corporate Culture and PerformanceJohn Kotter & James Heskett

• Increased revenues four times faster • Had 7 times higher job creation rates • Increased stock prices 12 times faster • Had 750 percent higher profits • Grew net income by 700 percent • Doubled customer satisfaction  • Reduced turnover

Organizations that made culture an integral part of their strategy…

Feedback: part of your narrative

How welcome is it?

How is it received?

How often is it acted on? How often is it solicited?

How often is it given?

How is it given?

1. Partner with managers

2. To create a feedback culture, create a culture for feedback

3. Ask, ask some more, then keep asking

4. Reward and recognize feedback

5. Cultivate trust

6. Architect feedback opportunities

Tips for getting started

“Like any habit, implementing an employee feedback system may take a bit of time to get used to. But the

payoff is big—empowered employees, increased productivity and extraordinary innovation.”

-David Hassell, CEO

Collecting Feedback with Surveys

Avoid Leading Words

• Consider this example:

• “We recently updated our intranet to be easier to navigate and more user-friendly. What do you think of it?”

• Instead, keep your question neutral and simply ask “What are your thoughts on the new intranet?”

The more questions you ask, the less time your respondents spend, on average,

answering each question.

- SurveyMonkey Research https://www.surveymonkey.com/blog/2011/02/14/survey_completion_times/

Ask Open Ended Questions

The easiest thing to do is to ask closed questions like multiple choice and opinion scales, but you’ll get the most value from open-ended questions that let employees speak their minds freely.

Only Ask What’s Necessary

• Be relentless in removing questions from your survey. Only ask what’s absolutely necessary.

• Any distractions or other noise will only dilute the quality of what you’re really looking for.

• Always start with the goal in mind.

Anonymity

Unfortunately, there’s so much fear in most cultures that we need to give employees an anonymous voice to express what’s on their mind.

Feedback and Performance

Performance Reviews

of performance reviews end up decreasing employee performance-– Psychological Bulletin

of executives believe their current program doesn’t result in performance or engagement. – Deloitte

30%

58%

of companies are now reconsidering their performance strategy. – Bersin70%

of companies surveyed think performance reviews are worth their time – Deloitte

of HR executives say yearly evaluations are useful. – Deloitte

6%

2%

of workers are dissatisfied with their performance reviews. – Deloitte 80%

of employees with highest performance scores aren’t actually the highest performers – CEB

2/3 -5% improvement in performance is all managers believe will be generated in the process. – CEB

3%

Performance Reviews

“You rate me on ‘Marcus makes decisions quickly’ and your rating reveals simply whether I make decisions more quickly than you do.

If you rate me on ‘Marcus is a good listener’ and we learn only whether I am a better listener than you.

All of these questions are akin to you rating me on height. Whether you perceive me as short or tall, depends on how short or tall you are."

Idiosyncratic Rater Effect

- Marcus BuckinghamHarvard Business Review

Performance Reviews• Overgeneralization• Random measurement error• Interpretation error• Idiosyncratic rater effect• Recency Bias• Confirmation Bias• Faulty memory syndrome• Quantification of past behaviors

is ineffective• We tend to let it stand for more

than it should• Negative psychological impact

(defensive and demotivating)

• Too many variables• Too often rater is unqualified

(doesn’t understand job)• Shown to decrease morale• Found to create infighting• Leads to “gaming” and politics• Too subjective• Too infrequent• Too much focus on past, not

enough on future• Too costly• Takes too much time• Too despised

“Performance appraisals are perhaps the most reviled standard practice in all of management.”

Performance Appraisals

- Peter CappelliWharton School of Management

“Why we love to hate HR” HBR

“98% percent of human resources executives say yearly evaluations aren’t useful. So why are companies still doing them?”

Performance Appraisals

- Anne FisherFortune

70% of companies are now reconsidering their performance strategy - Bersin

The Right Way

Frequent FeedbackIncrease communication touch points

Signal to Noise Ratio

Increase Cycle TimeIntended Direction Actual Direction

Don’t wait till here

Catch them here

And here

OrganizationalWaste

Ask Simple Questions

1. Given what I know of this person’s performance, and if it were my money, I would award this person the highest possible compensation increase and bonus [measures overall performance and unique value to the organization on a five-point scale from “Strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”].

2. Given what I know of this person’s performance, I would always want him or her on my team [measures ability to work well with others on the five-point scale].

3. This person is at risk for low performance [identifies problems that might harm the customer or the team on a yes-or-no basis].

4. This person is ready for promotion today [measures potential on a yes-or-no basis].

Performance Questions Now Asked By Deloitte

Giving Feedback

The secret to having employees listen to your feedback is whether or not they respect you.

Respect is earned, incredibly hard to get, and requires authenticity.

You could have the exact same thing said by two different people with two completely different effects.

Focus On The Issue, Not The Person

Example of what not to do:

“I really don’t like your writing style. Your posts are too short and they add little value to our readers.”

This isn’t constructive feedback, it’s a personal attack.

What you should say instead:

“Based on research I’ve seen,blog posts with more than 2,500 words tend to perform better. Maybe we could try to make our posts a little bit longer?

You can use that extra length to go way deeper into detail, which should add more value to our readers. That would be awesome!”

Make Your Feedback Specific

Example of what not to do:

“Overall, good job on the presentation but I think it could have been better.

This is so vague. What was wrong with it? Plus, just because you didn’t like it, does it necessarily mean it was bad? How could it have been better?”

What you should say instead:

“Honestly, great job on the presentation! I really liked how you used animations to make your point about our Facebook marketing.

One small comment, maybe for next time, would be to put a few more statistics in there. Try and make it a bit more visual, I think it will have more of an effect.”

Make Feedback A Positive Thing

• The word “feedback” usually has a negative association.

• The reason for this is because most of our experience with feedback has been about criticism instead of improvement.

• When an employee hears their manager say “I have some feedback for you” the first thought in their mind is “Oh boy.”

• As a manager, you should approach the feedback process from an angle of coaching and genuinely trying to make an employee better.

Don’t Do The Feedback Sandwich

• It doesn't work.

• Usually, the negative feedback is buried and not specific

• Employees only hear what they want. So if you say “You’ve been doing a great job, but one thing I’d change is…”, they stop listening after “you’ve been doing a great job.”

• (source - A research paper, “Tell Me What I did Wrong: Experts Seek and Respond to Negative Feedback,”)

"A new market has emerged: Employee feedback apps for the corporate marketplace. These tools are powerful and disruptive, and they have the potential to redefine how we manage our organizations."

-Bersin, by Deloitte

• Our environments are in a constant state of change

• Organizations that evolve, survive

• Feedback loops are the key to evolution

3 Fundamental Truths

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Rusty LindquistW W W . B A M B O O H R . C O M

Jacob ShriarW W W . O F F I C E V I B E . C O M

@rustylindquist

linkedin.com/in/rustylindquist

@jacobshriar

linkedin.com/in/jacob-shriar-56199324