Feedback is the Number 1 Motivator of People
Feedback is the #1 Motivator of People
Ken Blanchard
Most managers manage by the LAZY method. LAZY is an acronym for Leave Alone Zap You. Many times as managers we never provide any feedback or leave people alone until they make a mistake then we Zap them. This is a horrible way to deal with people.
First, if we never provide any feedback, people never know how they are doing. The quote by Ken Blanchard says FEEDBACK is the #1 motivator of people, NOT positive feedback! Interesting. Employees are so desperate for feedback that they will even accept negative feedback. They just want to know how they are doing. Feedback, both positive and negative, is vital in the development of employees. If we have trained an employee in a skill set and never give them feedback on how they are doing they can't improve in the performance of that skill. Goal setting and balanced feedback is essential for developing employees and growing companies.
Three Common Feedback Errors and Their Results
1. Giving No Feedback
Giving no feedback at all is dangerous because it results in employees having no idea if their performance is acceptable or unacceptable. If someone is performing poorly and you are aware of it yet don't confront them, they assume you are okay with what they are doing. If they are performing a task well and you don't praise them they will assume no one cares and not repeat the performance.
2. Providing Only Negative Feedback
Only letting an employee know about poor performance makes them think that they can't do anything right. This can lead to dissatisfaction and loss of the employee. The way to improve performance is not to look for negative behavior and eliminate it. The employee who only provides feedback that is negative will have demotivated employees who will under perform and avoid their manager at all costs.
3. Providing Only Positive feedback
By providing only positive feedback you never address any areas of development and give the employee a false sense of security. Let's say you only praise a certain employee even though you know they need to improve in their computer skills. Because of your fear of confronting the employee his computer skills are really poor. Now a new manager comes into head your department and notices how poor this employee's computer skills are and wants to put them on a performance review. That would be difficult since you have been managing that employee for 2 years and have never mentioned his poor computer skills.
Balanced feedback is vital to the health and performance of any employee and organization. Commit to providing feedback to every employee that you manage every day this week and see what impact it has on morale and performance!!