Every individual loves to be praised while some prefer being criticized; they believe that criticism will help build them personally or professionally. However, by just giving criticism or praise is not enough to improve one's behavior or in the worst case change the behavior. Next time they do the same thing they will tend to repeat the same mistakes that they did before. Constructive feedback is a more useful and supportive tool than criticism and praise. It involves addressing particular concerns and giving factual information about a particular situation or subject while refraining from all kinds of personal feelings (Janasz, Dowd & Schneider, 2011). The aim is to raise an individual's awareness of a particular behavior in a way that will make them change or, at least, take steps towards change.
I had a personal experience at my workplace where I had to give constructive feedback to one of the employees in my group. I was selected by our department manager to head the group that was going to conduct some customer interviews about a new product that we had just launched in the market. As group leader, my job was to supervise and read and analyze the transcript of some of the group members. By doing this, I would be in a position to give feedback to the group member about how they conducted the interviews and how effective they were.
After the employees had conducted the interviews, it was my time now to read and analyze the transcripts. At first, I went through one of the transcripts from one of the group members I was quite impressed with how she conducted the interview. She particularly did not let any superficial answers go unexplored. I let her know about the good work she had done. She was thrilled about the feedback. However, I noticed that some her transcripts were quite short than those of the other group members. I thought she had not asked the respondents enough follow-up questions to elicit deeper and insightful responses. I called her and informed her about my findings and told her that she should have included more follow-up questions in order to make the length of the transcripts of standard length (Janasz, Dowd & Schneider, 2011). The following day she came to my working desk and indicated that she had a hard time working with my feedback, and she thought that I should take some steps to make sure that she understood the accuracy of my feedback without coming across as defensive or unwilling to receive feedback. She stated that some of the transcripts were shorter than other because some of the respondents were not privy to the subject at hand.
It was at that moment that I realized that my feedback was actually not constructive, and I had to do better. As I listened to her share the reason she felt confused about the two version of feedback I gave her I realized I had to do better, and this led me to look over one of the short transcripts and pinpointed areas where she could have asked follow-up questions. This gave her actionable feedback, and it was now clear that she was satisfied with the feedback and would take all measures to improve hone her interviewing skills in the future in order to perform better in future assignments.
Knowing how to give constructive feedback can be the difference between the motivating others and having them feel unappreciated for their hard work. Motivated employees will always strive to their best in all situations without having to be pushed. Constructive feedback should be one that the listener can understand and act on it without sounding too personal or defensive about the whole situation. Even the well learned individuals sometimes mess this up. It is up to an individual to engage in active listening and making sure that the appropriate procedures of giving back feedback are implemented in the organization (Janasz, Dowd & Schneider, 2011). Above all manager need to ensure that the also respect the opinion of the employees since we all have different perceptions about situations.
Reference
Janasz, S., Dowd, K. & Schneider, B. (2011). Interpersonal Skills in Organizations. New York: McGraw-Hill.
