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Submitted by schroederc on
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Hi there,

I would love your thoughts on Feedback for a remote direct. She is based in a different country and reports to me sort of unofficially (sort of Matrix-Matrix). She works quite independently and is very eager. A fantastic employee.
In order to improve further and to give her chances to grow, I would love to give her feedback for effective future behavior. However, we may get together over Skype maybe once a day and a lot in email.

What is the best way to give her feedback on even small things (affirmative and corrective). Noticing behavior is already hard but giving feedback is even harder for me.
It does feel not natural as there might be that delay between things happening and call when you give feedback.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Christopher

ssentes's picture
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Hi Christopher,

Giving feedback when it's new to you is not comfortable even in person. Everytime we begin engaging in new behaviors of any sort they feel strange so having difficulties is not unusual. I too live in a different country than my boss so can understand how this particular instance can be tricky. We too Skype maybe once a day but mostly communicate via email, telephone and text message.

A key thing to delivering feedback is to remember that you cannot give it by any medium other than verbally. If you cannot ask the question, and get a response of course, you cannot provide feedback in the model. This makes phone and Skype your only options.

I promise that there will continue to be distractions and delays in the connection. But I can also promise that if you stick to it and push through the initial pain of training yourself to get comfortable with a new behavior, in this case feedback, it will be well worth the effort! This won't be easy for either of you in the short term but in the end you'll both reap huge rewards.

 

Sarah Sentes - Manager Tools Presenting Associate

 

 

schroederc's picture
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Hi Sarah,

Thanks for the positive words. I guess it is just the pain of starting something new.

Any idea on how to deal with the delay between the behavior and next call to give feedback? I feel it would be akward to call just to give one feedback on one email.

Christopher

WritePaper's picture

Believe in yourself and you will succeed! Everything new at first is not clear, but soon we get used to and cease to feel discomfort. Good luck to you.