6 Words you Should Never say to your Employees

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Can I give you some feedback?

Feedback

Those six words create anxiety in even the most self-assured and high-performing employees because they know what’s coming next.



The feedback sandwich.

Feedback employees

You hate giving feedback because you don’t want people to feel bad, so you try softening the blow by saying something nice up front and at the end while sandwiching the criticism in the middle.

You: “Joe, can I give you some feedback?”

Joe, cringing, “Uh, sure.”

You: “I liked your presentation. However, slide seven was too complicated; you said um and ‘you know’ way too many times, didn’t handle the third question very well, and seemed tired at the end. Nice work, overall, though.”

Huh?

That’s a classic feedback sandwich. The empty compliments are like the slices of bread; the criticism is the meat in the middle. No matter how you slice it, it still tastes like sh!t.

You feel better, but Joe’s ready to vote with his feet.

You might think the presentation was good, except for the points you mentioned, but Joe feels your compliments are insincere. You made the standard error of generalized compliments and specific criticisms. It’s easy for Joe to tell where you spent your mental energy and what you think.

It’s even worse because Joe believes you’re attacking him personally. Notice that you gave low-utility criticism. Joe cannot act on any of it. You’ve given him no way to get better.

Sound familiar?

What if you provided balanced, forward-looking feedback?

  1. First, you need a review after every presentation or significant action.
  2. You should provide compliments with the same level of specificity as the criticism.
  3. You must offer high utility: your compliments and criticisms should be actionable.
  4. Focus on action steps to sustain what’s awesome and improve what’s not.

You’re right back on track with:

  • “Let’s have our normal review.”
  • “Joe, slides 1-6 were terrific — tight, clear, and focused. Slide 7 was difficult to understand. In what ways can you make slide seven more like slides 1-6?”
  • “You nailed questions 1, 2, and 4 with specific answers backed up by data. What caught you off guard about question 3? What can I do to help you prepare for those big-picture questions?”

You get the idea. Your feedback (or feed-forward) needs to focus on improvement, not criticism. Joe needs to know you’ve got his back and want him to be successful.

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Get more action steps about leadership and accountability in these recent podcast interviews:

Conflict management and leadership in Wake-up Call hosted by Mark Goulston. https://mywakeupcall.libsyn.com/ep-370-chris-kolenda

Gaining buy-in: Modern Leadership hosted by Jake Carlson: https://jakeacarlson.com/288-biking-1700-miles-for-my-troops-with-chris-kolenda/

Leaders as exemplars in Get Uncomfortable with Shae McMaster: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/get-uncomfortable/id1557553154?i=1000575764193

How to get good at getting better: Getting Down to Business with Shalom Klein. https://anchor.fm/shalom-klein/episodes/Podcast-of-Get-Down-To-Business-with-Shalom-Klein–08142022—Chris-Kolenda–Chris-Kolenda-and-Kimberly-Janson-e1mbu0q

best

Be Better or the Best; Which 1 would you Prefer?

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Best

I used to think best was better, but now I’m sure that better is best.

Would you prefer to be better or the best?

There’s nowhere to go when you are the best. Best practices, for example, imply that you’ve reached the final stage of awesome. Best company? No one is better.

Sears, Toys”R”Us, Blockbuster, FAO Schwartz were best in class until they weren’t. Now, they’re out of business.

Complacency is common when you are the best. You believe that doing the same things will yield the same results.

People who focus on -er are the strivers who want to get better. They innovate and continue improving. They overtake the best, who’ve forgotten their -er.

Strongest, fastest, smartest, biggest, etc., have limited purchase.

Stronger, faster, smarter, bigger, etc., continue getting better.

You’re right back on track with:

“I strive to be a better version of myself every day.”

“Get 1 percent better each day,” says consultant Alan Weiss, “and in 70 days, you’ll be twice as good.

“I did DIY improvement for a while and got good results. Then I hired a trusted adviser, and my growth accelerated. I spend less time discovery-learning and more time implementing.”

Get good at getting better.

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Get more action steps about leadership and accountability in these recent podcast interviews:

Conflict management and leadership in Wake-up Call hosted by Mark Goulston. https://mywakeupcall.libsyn.com/ep-370-chris-kolenda

Gaining buy-in: Modern Leadership hosted by Jake Carlson: https://jakeacarlson.com/288-biking-1700-miles-for-my-troops-with-chris-kolenda/

Leaders as exemplars in Get Uncomfortable with Shae McMaster: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/get-uncomfortable/id1557553154?i=1000575764193

Survival Loop; are you stuck in drift mode?

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If you get 1 percent better each day, you’ll be twice as good in just 70 days. Imagine the significant impact you can have on your career, health, and relationships if you can focus on making daily improvements. Learn how to break out of the survival loop.

survival

And yet, most people drift. It’s easy to take the path of least resistance and go with the flow – or be overly ambitious about what your future self will do. This is the survival loop at work!

You’ll start that diet on Monday. You’ll work on your business plan after Labor Day. You’ll hire that coach when you have more money. But when? When will the stars align for you to have more time, more money, and fewer demands?

The only time is NOW. Waiting costs you the one thing you can never get back. Your TIME!

Waiting for “the perfect moment” reinforces your bad habits and mires you in the survival cycle.

  • Instead of innovating, you’re working harder, guaranteeing you’ll never have more free time.
  • Instead of learning better sales and marketing techniques, you’re continually frustrated that you’re not reaching your income goals.
  • Instead of hiring and training people to help grow your business, you end up doing it all yourself, even the tasks you dislike and aren’t good at.
  • Staying in this survival loop is a recipe for burnout, negatively impacting your health and relationship.

I can always make another buck, says my friend Alan Weiss. I can never make another minute.
The only way out of the “I’m-too-busy / I can’t afford it / I’ll do it later” loop is to take action because you know there will NEVER be a perfect time. In fact, NOT having what you want can provide the exact motivation you need. When you’re HUNGRY, you’re motivated.

You may think, “Chris, I get the importance of personal growth, but here are the problems. Some of these programs become another part-time job, others give you ivory tower stuff that I can’t apply, and then there are the goofballs and charlatans. I don’t know which coaching program or adviser is right for me.”

Sound familiar?

What if I told you that you are exactly right, and that’s why you need to get the right fit?

Applied learning is the essential improvement, and that’s why a trusted adviser is your shortest and most effective path to success.

Look for three ingredients in your trusted adviser:

  1. First, you need an emotional connection so that you know they have your best interests in mind and won’t waste your time.
  2. You want someone who gives you new tools, insights, and perspectives — who can help you expand your capacity and capabilities — not someone who just asks you questions.
  3. You need accountability to apply the right tools, insights, and perspectives at the right time, get feedback, adjust, and refine. That’s what trusted advisers help you do.

No one ever learned to ride a bicycle by watching a TikTok video or reading 3-ring-bound pdfs.

You’re right back on track with:

  • “I meet with my trusted adviser for 30 minutes each week. That’s 1/80th of my time. It reduces the spinning and increases the winning.”
  • “I stopped a weekly meeting 90 days ago to spend 30 minutes with my coach. No one misses the meeting, and I’m twice as effective.”
  • “I save about four hours for every 30 minutes I spent with my adviser.”

To get good at getting better, start with finding the right-fit adviser. We have an entire team of advisers here at Strategic Leaders Academy, and we’ll pair you with the right fit.

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Get more action steps about leadership and accountability in these recent podcast interviews:

Conflict management and leadership in Wake-up Call hosted by Mark Goulston. https://mywakeupcall.libsyn.com/ep-370-chris-kolenda

Gaining buy-in: Modern Leadership hosted by Jake Carlson: https://jakeacarlson.com/288-biking-1700-miles-for-my-troops-with-chris-kolenda/

Leaders as exemplars in Get Uncomfortable with Shae McMaster: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/get-uncomfortable/id1557553154?i=1000575764193

accountability

What you need to know about 3 X 3 Accountability

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accountability

3X3 accountability is proactive because it helps you set clear expectations and assign responsibility for self, peer, and leader actions.

Accountability shapes behavior so that people do the right things in the right ways without you having to micromanage them, such as:

  • Meeting agreed on expectations
  • Delighting your customers
  • Working together to achieve your organization’s common good.

Without accountability, you find yourself cleaning messes and fixing problems. This kind of work is failure-work, and it sucks your time and energy for innovation and growth.

You may think, “But Chris, why don’t people do what they said they’d do? Why do I have to be the bad guy? I feel like I move from one difficult conversation to another, and it’s exhausting.”

Sound familiar?

What if I told you that most accountability problems begin with unclear expectations? There’s a direct correlation between expectations and results. When people know the expectations — especially when they help you create them — they are far more likely to follow through.

3 X 3 accountability helps you create a virtuous expectations and reinforcement cycle.

1. Identify three behaviors or habits that will improve your team’s work together. Use the “What + So That + Results & Outcomes” formula. For example:

Report bad news as soon as you verify it so that we can take steps to address the problem.

Focus on cause, not blame, when problems arise so that we can quickly take corrective action and improve psychological safety in reporting.

Underwrite honest mistakes and shortfalls and celebrate wins when people try new things so that we encourage innovation.

2. For each behavior or habit, what do acceptable, unacceptable, and awesome look like?

Report bad news as soon as you verify it so that we can take steps to address the problem.

– Unacceptable: hiding bad news, shooting the messenger, flying off the handle, finger-pointing.

– Acceptable: Report the bad news as soon as it’s verified. Receive the news without judgment or finger-pointing, and identify and address the cause(s). No finger-pointing.

– Awesome: identify the problem, diagnose the cause, and recommend ways to address it.


3. Identify responsibilities for people to self-correct, when peer-correct should happen, and when leader-correct should occur.

You’re right back on track with:

  • “I like how you identified the cause and gave me a recommendation. Let’s go with it.”
  • “I didn’t react properly to your report. I should have thanked you and taken action instead of getting angry. I’m sorry about that. What do you suggest we do about the problem you reported.”
  • “You nailed it when you took action to fix that bottleneck. That’s exactly the initiative we need.”

3X3 accountability is proactive because it helps you set clear expectations and assign responsibility for self, peer, and leader actions. You’ll improve psychological safety when you have buy-in for the performance and behavioral standards.

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Get more action steps about leadership and accountability in these recent podcast interviews:

Wake-up Call hosted by Mark Goulston. https://mywakeupcall.libsyn.com/ep-370-chris-kolenda

Modern Leadership hosted by Jake Carlson: https://jakeacarlson.com/288-biking-1700-miles-for-my-troops-with-chris-kolenda/

Wealthability hosted by Tom Wheelwright: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lead-to-win/id1460072138?i=1000559631933

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I have several programs geared to developing leadership skills, such as Becoming a WHY Leader (TM), CEO mastermind groups, and 1-on-1 personal trusted advising.

To see which ones fit your needs, hit reply or schedule a call with me: https://callSLA.as.me/Chris.

Working with Chris has helped me visualize and communicate more clearly, gain the buy-in that inspires greater performance, and put my subordinates in positions to succeed.

Andy Weins, CEO, Green Up Solutions



accountability

Proactive versus Reactive Accountability; Without Accountability, your Plans can Quickly Fall Apart

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accountability

Unfortunately, you cannot completely avoid reactive accountability. You have to tally the metrics and address the mishaps, wins, and mixed performances that are parts of business and life.

To run a successful business, we must hold people accountable to do the things they promised to do, such as:

  • Finishing tasks
  • Following up with clients
  • Achieving sales quotas

Without accountability, your plans can quickly fall apart. You may think, “But Chris, why don’t people just do what they said they’d do? Why do I have to keep track of everything? Why don’t they just tell me the truth? I can’t do anything about the situation after the fact. I need my team to act like grown-ups.”

Sound familiar?

What if I told you there’s a better way to hold your team accountable? There are actually two types of accountability – reactive and proactive.

Reactive accountability happens after the fact: you tally the quarterly metrics, your team had an incident, the report is late, you lost a key account.

Now you’re mad.
You’re embarrassed.
You’re losing money.

With emotions surging, it’s easy to fly off the handle – or to push others out of the way and do the work yourself. The worst part is that you have to have those difficult conversations. Ugh!  

And if you don’t, you know the problem will only get worse. Lowering your standards is not the answer. Having others redo the work is a recipe for resentment. Constantly operating in fire-fighting mode is stressful, leaving little time for innovation, creativity and joy.

Problems that are chronically avoided create a toxic work environment.

Unfortunately, you cannot completely avoid reactive accountability. You have to tally the metrics and address the mishaps, wins, and mixed performances that are parts of business and life. But you can have a lot less stress in your life and business when you embrace proactive accountability.

Proactive accountability reduces the likelihood of misfires and increases the probability of success. It’s also a lot more fun. Proactive accountability is what you do to shape behavior. You set expectations, provide the nudges that celebrate the right actions, and adjust the habits that lead to breakdowns.

Remember when you taught your child to ride a bike? You didn’t simply correct them when they fell over (reactive accountability), you showed them how to ride and encouraged the right habits.

Keep pedaling!
Keep your back straight!
Look where you want to go!
You got it! Keep going!

If you saw them wobbling or slowing their pedal speed, you nudged them to change their actions because you knew in advance the consequences of bad habits and poor skills.

Your awesomeness in teaching your child to ride a bike is your secret to leadership success.

By encouraging the behaviors and habits that lead to success and nudging ineffective practices in a better direction, you dramatically increase the chances of superior performance — and joyful high-fives when it comes to measuring results.

You’re right back on track with:

  • “I like how you made the customer feel heard and addressed his problem immediately.”
  • “You did right by raising the red flag on this safety concern. Now we can fix it before someone gets hurt.”
  • “You nailed it when you took action to fix that bottleneck. That’s exactly the initiative we need.”

Proactive accountability improves results and creates more opportunities for joyful reactive accountability.

Schedule a call with Chris

Better accountability increases performance and reduces corrective action, so you have the time and energy to innovate and grow.

The 3 C’s of Accountability

1. Clarity. Your expectations must be so clear that an 8-year-old could say them to you perfectly. People need to know the why behind the expectations. All you need to do is add “so that we achieve x. y, z outcomes.”

Checklists are terrific ways to make expectations clear. If they’re good enough for astronauts to use, then they’re probably intelligent steps for me and you.

2. Consistent Consequences. Recognize when people are doing the little things right and be specific. “I like how you took the initiative to pull the irate customer away from Jim.”

Apply the right nudge when you see indicators that the person has not yet mastered the proper habits, “Here’s a different way to defuse tension. [Practice] How does that feel to you?”

Step in when you notice someone is distracted, “You seem pre-occupied today. Am I wrong about that?” If necessary, give them the time to deal with whatever’s on their mind so they can rejoin the workday free of distractions.

Standards are arbitrary if you only address them on certain days of the week or with some people and not others. If the rules do not apply to you, they should not apply to any other employee.

Model the behaviors you expect from everyone on your team. When you don’t do that, people see you as a hypocrite.

At the same time, people expect you to account for extenuating circumstances with sound judgment.

3. Caring. People respond well to feedback when they believe you have their best interests at heart. Otherwise, they feel like you are picking on them or playing favorites. Use your weekly 15-minute check-in with your subordinates and quarterly counseling to build your relationship, help them develop and use their superpowers, and set them up for future success.