The Effective Manager, 2nd Edition

7Talk About Performance—Feedback

The second most important manager behavior that leads to results and retention is communicating about performance.

To be fair, you've probably tried to talk to your directs about how they were doing. But it was hard, wasn't it? Particularly when you have to point out a mistake. You tried to talk to them about what happened, but maybe they got upset. Or you just didn't have the right words, and it was awkward. It chilled your relationship for a couple of weeks. Awkward, and often a performance dampener.

And you probably thought that it was partially or even mostly your fault that some well‐intentioned negative feedback went poorly. But it really wasn't. Negative performance communications are hard for a host of reasons, and none of them are your fault.

First off, don't worry. Performance communications don't have to be hard at all. If you use the Manager Tools Feedback Model, we guarantee you that you will be able to give positive or negative feedback easily, and routinely, taking no more than 15 seconds each time. And your directs won't complain.

You were doing it wrong. ;‐)

We don't mean to be rude, honestly. But the fact is, what kind of training were you given before you were given responsibility for other professionals? We know the answer: NONE.

If you didn't get any training, what would make any reasonable person think that you would be good at giving performance communications? They don't teach this in undergraduate programs. We only know ...