In this week’s podcast, Mike and Mark share a technique managers can use to give feedback to their team members. Feedback is the most frequently-used tool of effective managers. What is feedback? Feedback shows someone the impact of their behavior, allowing them to change ineffective actions or continue doing things that help the team achieve its goals.

The dirty little secret of most managers is that while they are DESPERATE to get feedback from their bosses, they then visit that same sin on their own team. Every time Mark asks groups of executives and managers if they’d like more guidance and response from their boss, everyone raises their hand. On the other hand, every group also believes that their team is hearing everything the team needs from them. Of course, it’s not true.

Another example of how little feedback is intentionally given is how managers defend themselves when we challenge them. “You don’t give enough feedback,” we suggest, and the common response is “I give detailed annual reviews,” or, better but still trivial, “I do quarterly reviews”. This is a great amount of feedback/guidance if you’re willing to wait 90 days or a whole year to change/improve anybody’s performance.

We believe the reason this is so is a combination of fear of conflict, and lack of skill. Basically, you probably see things all the time that you don’t like or would like to improve in some way. We think a lot of your fear is retention related: “Well, what I have to share is not that big, and if I say something, he might get mad and quit, and gee, he may not be great but he does more work than an open position would…”

The other reason is most managers don’t know how - this show will teach you.

We’ve gotten a great many questions, comments, and kudos for our show in July on the Feedback Model. Many listeners are discovering the power of feedback, of taking it out of the realm of the rare and into the stream of the every day. Not to sound repetitive, but most managers see feedback as akin to holding their breath - waiting as long as possible, and then creating a lot of sound and often fury. The Feedback Model tells us to see feedback like breathing - so regular as to become unnoticed.

Many of you have written asking questions about how to counter some of the typical responses to the feedback you give. “What do I do or say when they tell me they’ll ‘think about it’? What if they SAY they’ll make the change, only to continue in their ineffective behavior patterns? As you might imagine, we’ve dealt with these issues before, and this show talks about the approach to take, and once again, gives you SPECIFIC things to say and why they work.

We do a brief review of the feedback model at the front of the cast, but still encourage you to give a listen to our original cast, in the JULY Archives.

We got a great email recently from a listener asking about how to develop one of the managers in their company. The mail went something like this: “hey guys, love manager tools, really like the usability of the recommendations. But need some help. One of our guys has some management responsibilities, and we’d like to help him get better. Wonder if you can recommend some sort of comprehensive coaching program, with some resources or books that we can get him involved in.”

Well, if you’ve ever thought that about one of your managers, or maybe even yourself, this cast is for you. What we’re going to do is present you an abbreviated version of the manager-tools development philosophy, and then give you some coaching examples that would fit within it. Now, we say the word “philosophy with great trepidation. It’s one of those big words that books on management fill themselves up with, but that don’t really help folks like you and us get any better at what we do. So maybe we ought to say this: we’re going to tell you exactly how we develop people, and give you one example to get you started. More examples in a future podcast, as well as the inclusion of development plans.

In this show, we’re going to talk about the simplest, most elegant tool we know of to make something you do at work more efficient and more effective.

Once we explain it, you’ll get it, and you’ll be able to do it. It blows away two of our favorite tool criteria, effectiveness and efficiency. It works; that is, you’ll get notable change out of this tool. So that makes it effective. And, it’s terribly fast, without ANY fanfare or paperwork or staffing, so that makes it efficient as well. We like ANYTHING that is both effective and efficient.

The tool’s nickname is “The Hot Wash”. Its more formal name is Running an After Action Session.

Before we get into it, a note about nomenclature. We’re going to call this tool the Hot Wash, and here’s why. First, it’s catchy. It has some emotional power that “Running An After Action Session” just doesn’t. Hot Wash sounds cool, folks, and we’re all about cool here. Okay, we’re not really all about cool, but the point is, names matter. One on ones as a title works because people long to connect on a personal level, one to one. We’re looking for a better name for the feedback model, in fact, just for this reason. We used to like the IMPERSONALITY of it, frankly, but we’re re-thinking that. Hot Wash will excite your people a bit.

What’s more, it will reinforce that the tool you’re using will be relatively painless, short and sweet. No graphs, no charts, no dog and pony. “We’re gonna meet, talk about how things went, and see what to keep and what to make better next time. Nothing fancy. Hot Wash.”

As well, After Action processes can be a LOT more complicated. We’ll do a show at some point about a really in depth effort that will impress the heck out of you, and we may ask some professional colleagues to be involved. Basically, we’re stealing a core part of the larger and revered After Action Process. We know most of you won’t ever use the larger process… but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a ton out of a Hot Wash. A Ton!

One final point about the name. I haven’t been able to verify this. I believe the reason it’s called Hot Wash comes from the Army. I think it’s because a quick way to clean a rifle or other small weapon is to douse it in boiling hot water. It’s not a complete cleaning — a soldier still has to break down the weapon and get into the details. But it serves a valuable, immediate purpose by getting at the big stuff in a split second.

And how many other things do you do at work that get at the big stuff in a split second (besides some of the rest of Manager Tools?) One more thing: You’re gonna love it.

We also promised during the show that we’d share a sample email you can use to invite folks to your first Hot Wash. As promised, here it is …

Sample Email “Say It” Text

Team Member:

Manager.

We talked recently about managerial communications, looking at the various ways you as a manager can deliver your message and the organization’s messages to your team. There’s more to talk about there, but we’re going to tackle a different type of communication this time.

Mark’s core skill is coaching managers and executives on their effectiveness. These efforts take many different forms, because different managers have different strengths and weaknesses. Some managers barely speak to their teams, are not personable, and are perceived (rightly) as not caring about their direct reports. They wonder why they can’t seem to get anything done.

Others of us show genuine care and concern for our team and communicate often, but our desks are a disaster. We don’t know how our team is performing against the standards the organization sets, and we’re constantly late meeting deadlines.

So, different managers need different help in achieving what OUGHT to be our core mission: effectiveness, which is achieving the right results for our organization.

And yet, Mark notices that regardless of their other skillsets, regardless of other strengths and weaknesses, almost all managers and executives he coaches need help with what he calls micro-communications, which is a critical but overlooked subset of interpersonal communications in general.

So, in this cast, we address some things you can do immediately to become more effective in your micro-communications.

Last week, we discussed the “Listening” side of communications. This week, we cover the other side, the “Responding” side. Of course, responding when you’re in agreement is the easy part. However, how do you respond when you disagree or there is potential conflict? That, my friend, is what this week’s podcast is about!

It’s been quite a while since we talked about feedback. We think one of the reasons for that is that there’s some negativity to it. What we mean by that is that one on ones are an easy winner. It’s about your team member, they want more time with you, a half hour with you every week seems too good to be true. And, if you’ve stuck to it, you’ve noticed improvements in areas that go beyond just employee relationships. Maybe they’re kind of hard on your schedule INITIALLY, but they’re perceived positively.

Not so much with feedback. I bet when we even SAID feedback, some of you cringed. Even though we encourage AFFIRMING as well as adjusting feedback, for some reason managers have a somewhat negative reaction to the feedback model.

And we think we know why: because adjusting feedback introduces conflict, or tension. Let’s not argue the merits of the value that sandpaper delivers to fine woodwork here today. Rather, we have an additional level of learning for you to use when you deliver feedback. Or put differently, we have an add-on to this tool which will make you more willing to use it, and will make the tool even MORE effective. (Though those of you who use it will find that hard to believe.)

During the show, we make reference to the DiSC® Behavioral Model. You’ll find a useful summary of the DiSC model here. You may even want to print it out and have nearby while you listen to the show.

If you are interested in learning in detail about YOUR profile, you may purchase the online version of the DiSC Profile here.

Ok, let’s get this out of the way … this is not *really* a show about how to fire people. Rather, today we discuss how to take a poor performer and turn them into a good performer. And when, despite your best efforts, you are not successful in helping the person turn around, how to be in a position where you can fire the person. You may not feel good about it (that’s ok, you shouldn’t!), but you will be confident in your decision and be able to put your head down on your pillow and sleep at night.

There are six steps:

1. Feedback
2. Systemic Feedback
3. One on One Performance Discussion
4. Coaching
5. Formal Performane Discussion and Notification
6. Coaching Within Your Corporate Process

We’ll review these steps at a high-level today, and come back to them with more detail and some examples over the next couple of podcasts.

If you’re one of our many listeners who come to the website each week to download the show, try subscribing. Simply go to iTunes, download the iTunes player, and then click on the iTunes subscription button on the left side of this web page. It’s quick, it’s easy, and you’ll have the convenience of having the Manager Tools podcast downloaded AUTOMATICALLY each week. Give it a try!

We’ve received several questions by email and on the website regarding how to handle input about your team from other people in your organization. This cast, on what to do with “feedback” from others, seems perfectly timed. We knew we’d get questions like these - they’re pretty normal. But we sure didn’t expect to have this good of timing!

While there will always be those who share information with you that isn’t necessarily intended to truly help your organization, we believe the vast majority is well intended. And yet, so often it is delivered clumsily, and/or is unactionable. This cast will help you RECEIVE it well, and then help you action it.

You can’t expect others to give you readily packaged feedback, but you don’t dare just pass on what they say. How do you do that?

Have a listen.

If you’ve ever had to deal with two of your directs fighting about something, this is the cast for you. Mark likes to say that “the definition of conflict is two human beings in the same COUNTY.” If that’s true, then 500 or 1,000 or 5,000 people in the same organization is not just ‘a conflict waiting to happen’, it’s conflict guaranteed to happen.

Yes, conflict is inevitable. Unfortunately, the natural response of most managers to conflict among their staff or team [can you guess what it is?] is completely, totally ineffective.

Sure, some conflict is good - the creative tension that produces better ideas, disagreements that lead to a third way. But most of us don’t describe that as conflict - that’s just “different ideas”. The conflict we’re talking about here is by definition dysfunctional and ineffective.

This cast lays out a way to address it and move toward effectiveness.