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There are two primary types of situations that we should give our manager's feedback; either 1) they are making a wrong behavioral decision or 2) they are making a wrong business decision. Today, we will discuss giving our managers feedback when they are making incorrect behavioral decisions, such as, but not limited to, not showing appreciation for the team, disrespecting another team member, or spending time in low leverage activities. Next week, we will discuss giving our managers feedback for business decisions.
Recently, I was speaking with one of a dear friend, who joined an early-stage 20-person startup as a department head. She observed that the CEO would get involved with simple administrative tasks, such as data entry, which could be delegated. Therefore, she also realized that this reduces the overall productivity of the entire company because more junior members could take on these activities, while the CEO can focus on higher leverage activities. For those who are not familiar, a 'high leverage activity' is one where the effort, relative to skill level, drives the highest amount of impact. Stepping back, this is a common problem that startup founders face because prior to hiring a team, they likely had to do everything themselves. Now, as a new department head, how would you approach the CEO to provide them upward feedback about their behavior?
To give our managers upward feedback pertaining to their behavior, we need to supply evidence that describes the effect of the behavior and gauge the manager's response to the supplied evidence. Based on the manager's response, if we are not convinced they will make a behavior change, we need to continue gauging why they do not want to or feel they cannot change. If we still disagree with their behavior after we have a better understanding of their rationale, we can circle back and provide tailored evidence that helps the manager move towards a behavioral change. On the contrary, once the manager declares concrete plans to make a behavior change, we can exit the 'supply evidence-gauge response' loop, at least until proven otherwise.
At a high level, notice the suggested approach here is providing information, gathering information, and then providing more information if necessary, as opposed to directly proposing "you need to change your behavior." In some cases, direct communication is effective, but to drive lasting behavior change, both we and our managers need to understand why the behavior needs to change. As team members trying to convince our manager to change their behavior, we need to lead with evidence and the manager needs to decide for themselves to change their behavior.
Supply Evidence
In order for our manager to change their behavior, we should start by supplying supporting evidence, hard facts ideally as opposed to opinions, that showcase the effect of their behavior. When communicating this information, utilizing verbal face-to-face conversation, either in-person or over video chat, is most effective because the next step, "Gauge Response", will be much more clearly understood. If an email or a direct message is utilized to supply this evidence, we will have a more difficult time determining if our manager has fully understood the feedback.
Following along on our first example of a CEO getting involved in low leverage activities, the department head needs to supply evidence to the CEO that showcases the effect of their behavior. The department head could say something along the lines of, "our data analyst is not being utilized when they do not own the database..." It is important to directly mention the activity/behavior, participating in data entry in this case. However, noticed how the comment does not contain the word "you" or demand a change from the CEO, which could cause a defensive reaction and make gauging their response less effective.
Gauge Response
The most critical part of the upward feedback conversation relies on our ability to gauge their response. Gauging their response involves getting their opinion on the supplied evidence. If they immediately realize the need to make a behavioral change, we can go onto the next step. Otherwise, our next sub-goal within gauging their response is to extract their logic as to why they made the behavioral decision initially.
Continuing from our last statement, "our data analyst is not being utilized when they do not own the database...", the department head can simply add on "What do you think?" or "What is your opinion?" In these behavioral feedback situations, our goal is to understand why without actually using the word "why". The word "why" gives the impression of interrogation, and similar to using the word "you", may cause a defensive reaction, reducing the amount of information that we actually receive.
Perhaps the CEO replied, "It is faster and more accurate when I do the data entry." From this statement, we can gauge that the CEO does not trust the abilities of the data analyst yet. The CEO is not thinking about leverage, but rather just producing a quality result (e.g., correct data). Given that the CEO has not made any committed behavioral changes, we need to go back to supplying evidence. Specifically, the evidence needs to bridge this gap of trust between the CEO and the data analyst. The department head can then respond by saying, "the data analyst has been reliable when working with me on X, Y, and Z projects" or "would the data analyst be able to learn from you, so that they will be able to do so independently in the future?"
Gauging our manager's response may involve multiple back and forth comments and does not end until either they commit a behavioral change or provide reasoning for their behavior that we agree with. Throughout these back and forth comments, our goal should be to provide evidence and ideas, but never force any decision. Behavioral changes need to come from our manager, because deciding change will lead to more effective results compared to being told to change.
Behavior Change
Behavior change is something that should come from the manager. Our job is to detect whether or not we have genuinely elicited a behavior change. If the manager replies, "yes" or "I agree", they have not committed to a behavior change yet. To get a genuine commitment, we want to extract out explicit plans that include logic, methodology, and timing.
If the department head has successfully convinced the CEO to change, the CEO would reply with, "Until I can fully trust the data analyst, I may still need to do the data entry. However, after this meeting, I will sit down and train the data analyst so that they can be trusted." In this case, the logic, 'until I can fully trust', describes what actions will occur under specified circumstances. The methodology for behavior change is training the data analyst and the timing is immediately after the meeting.
Closing
Behavioral changes can be supported by external evidence, but need to be discovered internally. To get our managers to make behavioral changes, we can lay out the facts about how their behaviors effect the team and the organization as a whole. Afterwards, we should continue to gauge their reaction to these external stimuli. If they make concrete plans to change based on our input, we have successfully managed upwards through a behavioral situation. In any other circumstance, we need to continue gauging to get a deeper understanding and provide additional evidence until they do make concrete plans to change or we support their rationale for the original behavior.
Also, in case you missed it, The Morale Mindset Podcast, which discusses leveraging people dynamics to drive results, is now live!
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