Submitted by chabarang on
in
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I recently led a "staff work day" where 25 of our staff weatherstripped some of our buildings. Many of them had "other appointments" later that day, or did not show because they were ill, but all but one of them gave me advance notice. Also, the three team leaders I assigned either said they had to leave in the middle of the project or were found checking their emails instead of being with their team. I want to thank those who worked hard during the work day, but how do I do it, since I find it hard to find something to thank some of them for?
Standard Feedback
I would say you can give standard feedback to those who did well and adjusting feedback to the others. One-on-ones may be the best time for the latter.
Thank you for your reply. I
Thank you for your reply. I did it this way in the end. In our weekly staff meeting (50 people present) I thanked everybody who helped on the workday, and then I gave negative feedback in front of the entire group. It went something like this.
"I'd like to share a couple things about the workday. When people make other plans for the workday and they don't let the workday leader know about it at least a day in advance, here's what happens. The workday leader has to scramble to find a replacement for those people, the work that was planned might not get finished, and it also sends a message that says, 'I don't really care about the hard work that went into planning this workday'."
I realise this might not have been the best way to do it, but because of the large number of co-workers (not my normal directs) I resorted to group feedback. Can you give me some feedback on this way of doing it? I'm all ears.
Thanks,
Rob
My Knee-Jerk Reaction...
My knee-jerk reaction would be to underscore that feedback is about future behavior. Groups don't have behavior, individuals do, so individual feedback is required. It's not too late to give individual feedback, especially the affirmative feedback.
I like to make sure my directs understand the difference between honesty and integrity. I explain that honesty is making words match reality. Integrity is making reality match words. I think this is a Covey-ism, but I could be wrong on that... it might have been my Dad. ;-)
--Michael