Giving unclear, infrequent feedback has somewhat of the same effect — though slightly less violent. You end up hurting the person receiving the feedback more, even though you’re just doing what your parents always told you empathetic people do: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.
This is where Scott says she’s seen managers make the most mistakes. “No one sets out to be unclear in their feedback, but somewhere along the line things change. You’re worried about hurting the person’s feelings so you hold back. Then, when they don’t improve because you haven’t told them they are doing something wrong, you wind up firing them. Not so nice after all…”
In order to give people the feedback they need to get better, you can’t give a damn about whether they like you or not. “Giving feedback is very emotional. Sometimes you get yelled at. Sometimes you get tears. These are hard, hard conversations.”
Scott breaks giving feedback into four quadrants. On the horizontal axis you have unclear to clear feedback, and on the vertical you have the spectrum of anticipated emotions from happy to unhappy. The gentler the feedback, the less clear it tends to be. That’s the cruel empathy quadrant. The one you want to be in is the top right — clear even if it’s bad news.
Tough love is how you build trust the fastest.
“When you’re hard on someone but they really hear you, that’s when you build trust over time,” she says. “They’re going to react emotionally. All you can do is react empathetically. Don’t try to prevent or control someone’s feelings.”
The Tactics:
- Just say it. “A lot of management training ties you in knots trying to say things just right. Just let it go. Just say it. It will probably be fine. Say it in private and say it right away. Criticism has a half-life. The longer you wait the worse the situation gets.”
- Don’t be loose with praise. Managers tend to expect that praise is easier than criticism, but it can go awry. “If you’re wrong about what you’re praising someone for; if you don’t know the details; if you’re not sincere; it’s actually going to be worse for the person than saying nothing. Praise in public, but only if you know you’re absolutely right and you mean it. Otherwise people will see right through you.”
