Welcome to The “Morale Mindset” Publication written by me, David Huynh. For those who do not know me, I am a people-focused business professional who seeks to leverage people dynamics to drive results. Thank you for joining me. If you are not on my email list yet and want to dive deeper into the intersection of results and people with me, you may subscribe here:
Apologies for the delay since the last article - There was a long holiday here in Thailand, and I decided to take it completely off. In the previous article, we discussed making process improvements through feedback. Over the next several articles, we will discuss how to improve people dynamics with various individuals across our organizations. Today, we will focus on receiving the optimal amount of feedback from our manager by improving their morale towards us.
As an executive consultant, I have had several clients bring up issues with their manager, ranging from 'Manager does not trust me and micromanages' to 'Manager does not give me enough feedback'. A strong morale mindset with our manager translates to receiving the optimal level of feedback from our manager. The optimal level of feedback gives us the opportunity to grow and gives our manager to optimize for the team's results while balancing people development. Let us dive into how we can work towards receiving this optimal level of feedback with our managers.
Each boss has a certain way that they like to work with others, which depend on their personal style and the working relationship. There are cases where managers will give too much feedback, not enough feedback, or on some occasions, the optimal amount of feedback. Let's discuss each of these in further detail. Specifically, we will discuss how to identify which case we fall under with our manager and how to move towards the optimal amount of feedback.
Too Much Feedback
Too much feedback is defined as more input than necessary for us to accomplish a goal. This is negative because it robs us of the opportunity to figure out the solution on our own. For example, if we have multiple years of experience performing search engine optimization (SEO) for new pages, but our manager decides to walk through the basic process with us, our manager is giving us too much feedback. If we have developed expertise in an area, our manager should only need to align the overall goal with us, and then set us off to achieve the goal.
Managers tend to give too much feedback or get overly involved if they do not trust us. This lack of trust typically comes from a general lack of understanding of our work and our processes. In the case of the SEO, the manager may not know that we already have a robust process or that we are already done with the project. So to ameliorate the situation, we need to share more details about our work and at a higher frequency. If trust has not been established yet, sharing more details means sharing the context that we have used to make our decisions and/or the processes we are following to accomplish a goal. Sharing more frequently means more frequently than the existing check-ins. So if existing check-ins are weekly, we should give updates daily.
The appropriate amount of detail and the overall frequency of sharing will taper off as our relationship expands with our manager. Over time, as our manager receives more context and processes from us, they will begin to understand our thought process. And once they understand and have confidence in our thought process, they will begin to trust us. And lastly, once they trust us, they will know what degree of feedback is necessary to get us to the next level of thought. However, if they are still giving too much feedback at this point, we should directly discuss the level of feedback that we would find most optimal and get their opinion on it.
Not Enough Feedback
Not enough feedback occurs when we do not have enough guidance to reach the target objective. This is negative because if we do not receive enough feedback, we may be working towards a target that is slightly off of the desired target or may need to work inefficiently, investing time to reinvent the wheel. For example, if it is our first time performing search engine optimization, and our manager asks us to improve our website's ranking without any additional context or guidance.
Managers may decide to give less feedback either because they believe we can do it or because they do not believe the time investment is worthwhile. If our manager has misjudged our ability, we need to ask for specific feedback once we reach a hurdle that we cannot overcome, or at least not efficiently. We would know if our manager does not want to invest time into providing us feedback if they choose to ignore us when we ask for additional feedback.
When asking for additional feedback, similar to the prior situation where our manager gave us too much feedback, we need to start by giving them all of the context and our progress to date. After supplying the context, we should then list out the options we are considering, but are not sure about yet. Providing these listed options and rationale behind each will showcase our thought process, therefore, our manager will only need to give additional context that we are missing for us to get the optimal amount of feedback.
Optimal Amount of Feedback
The optimal amount of feedback does not spell out the solution, but gives us just enough to be able to solve the solution when combined with our existing knowledge and problem solving capabilities. For example, if our goal is optimize SEO, and we understand standard tactics, our manager can give us existing context on the business, and then we can adapt our standard tactics to the business' situation.
If we have a perfect manager that understands us completely and wants to push our problem solving potential, they will give us the optimal amount of feedback. In all other cases, we will need to work with other manager to either give us more or less feedback based on the tactics in the prior two sections.
Closing Remarks
We should strive to obtain the optimal amount of feedback, because at this point, we will be challenged at the right level to become better problem solvers. If we receive too much feedback, we will not be stretched to learn. If we receive not enough feedback, we may not be able to solve the problem correctly nor efficiently.
A map analogy
The optimal amount of feedback is like being given a paper map and then having to find the path ourselves. Too much feedback is google maps, which breaks down the directions, thereby allowing us to reach the destination without truly knowing the path. Not enough feedback is giving us the name of the destination, but no map resource.
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If you would like to further refine your company's or personal leadership and management capabilities, I provide executive coaching services, corporate trainings, and pro-bono consulting services. Please check out my website moralemindset.com to learn more.