When Feedback Hasn’t Worked.
When you’ve given feedback and there’s been no action, you need a new plan.
When feedback hasn’t worked.
Let’s say you’ve given feedback, but there’s been no change.
What can you do?
There are three things you can consider:
Check for understanding: have they understood your feedback? If they haven't understood your feedback, you need to revisit the conversation.
They understand but disagree. You need to figure out why, and then what will happen if you both continue to disagree.
Be upfront about the impact: They do understand, disagree and don’t know what the impact will be. That’s where you come in to clarify.
Let’s have a look at these three ideas (check for understanding, understand but disagree, be upfront about the impact).
Step one: How do you know they understood you?
You don’t. You have to ask them and have them show you they understand.
It sounds obvious, but asking someone to play back to you what they understand you’re saying is such an easy win in finding out what they actually heard. And whether they’re paying attention.
People who are passive in a conversation don’t participate. They may nod, or smile along, but they aren’t really taking in what you’re saying. Instead, they’re praying this feedback conversation will soon be over.
If they can’t clearly articulate what you are requesting, and what their perspective is on it: it didn’t go in.
Are you afraid of the ‘awkward silence’?
Many leaders tell us they are. This has an impact on your feedback effectiveness, believe it or not.
When feedback doesn't result in action it can be because one person is doing all the work in a conversation. This looks like you talking and filling up all the awkward silence.
Reflect on times you filled in an ‘awkward silence’ in a feedback conversation.
Did it stop the other person from contributing?
When you do all the work for the other person, without meaning to, you rob the other person of the chance to contribute.
For someone to contribute, they need space to do so.
As a general rule: passivity means one of you is doing too much of the work in the conversation.
The silence that happens when you stop filling in the space exposes the work they need to do.
Step two: Re-addressing feedback you’ve already given.
So lets say step one (check for understanding) is a tick. You both agreed on feedback in the conversation. Yet no action… now what?
You need to give feedback on your feedback. Your goal is to figure out what’s going on for them, that stops them from taking action.
This conversation is a data gathering exercise.
You’re looking for insights into what stops them from taking action.
Examples:
“I’ve given you feedback a couple times on X. I’m a bit miffed, because I’m not seeing that change from my end. Can you shed some light from your point of view?”
“In our last conversation, we agreed to X. Do you remember that?”
“From memory, we’d agreed to X, but I haven’t seen that. Have things changed?”
Beware: you’ll often get a list of what stops them which you may see as excuses.
For your own sanity, reframe ‘excuses’ to ‘barriers to them’. It’s their reality, not yours you’re looking for in this exercise.
This conversation isn’t a threat. It’s a gesture of good faith. A loving nudge.
Step three: what’s the impact if things don’t change?
If you have an impact, you have an opportunity to educate the person what’s in it for them, if they choose to take your feedback on.
What you’re doing isn’t threatening: it’s educating the person on what their options are.
Let’s have a look at a few examples.
“I’m in a pickle because if this doesn’t change, we can’t get the go ahead to promote you. If you’d like to be considered for a promotion, this’d be one of those things…”
“Just so you know the process, the next step here is a Performance Improvement Plan. What this looks like is … I’d obviously love to avoid that, how about you?”
“So what this means is it’ll impact your reputation. As you know, the business is big on relationships. If this isn’t something you feel comfortable with, we can get you some help, or we can look at a differently shaped role…”
It changes the pressure from you having to ‘control’ how someone behaves to educating them how they need to behave to be successful.
In groups is one of the first places unhappiness shows up.
People don’t behave in unhelpful ways because they’re happy and fulfilled.
When someone acts in self-preserving ways, it’s the first signal they feel psychologically unsafe.
Acting up in a group is one of the safest ways of communicating that you're unhappy because it’s indirect, meaning you don’t anticipate someone will directly challenge you on it, but you do hope someone notices.Recap: course correcting when feedback hasn’t gone in:
Check for understanding: have they understood your feedback?
They understand but disagree. Find out why.
Educate them about the impact: If this continues, so what?
It’s their career. It’s their career. It’s their reputation. Give them an educated choice.
Could a culture of feedback transform your workplace?
Download an info pack on our workshop for workplaces: Giving & Receiving Feedback for leaders and employees.