Communicating with the Generations

Communicating with the Generations

Handout Sample

Communication Promise

Your Communication Promise

Communication Type / Who Delivers / Audience / Venue / Frequency

Providing Corrective Feedback

When dealing with problem situations, sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees! Look for cues to arising problems and tackle them immediately to stop a situation from becoming a bigger problem, or worse yet, an irrecoverable situation. Like positive feedback, this requires practice.

The key to effectively managing a problem is to communicate it in a way that will allow the employee to respond in a non-defensive manner. If you accuse without knowing the reason why, the employee will likely become defensive and you will be unable to resolve the issue.

Using this tool will help you to assess the reason why a problem is occurring and then give you the ability to appropriately respond to solve the problem. Try the following steps to communicating, assessing and solving problem situations.

Communicate the situation – the first step is to communicate the problem in a very direct, specific and non-punishing way.

Example: I noticed that XYZ project is $10K over budget and it appears you haven’t requested a change order. Can you explain what happened?

Diagnose the cause – listening to the answer will help you to diagnose the cause as:

Expectations (“I didn’t know what the XYZ project budget was.”)
Motivation (“I know, but I’ve been dealing with other things”)
Ability (“I thought I could get it done,but it took me longer than I expected”)

Respond based on diagnosis – Once you’ve diagnosed the cause, you can formulate your response in the appropriate manner.

Diagnosis / Action / Possible response

Expectations

/ Revisit your expectations / “Let me clarify what the budget is…”

Motivation

/ Explain results / “When you go over budget, that affects the profitability of the office, impairs the client relationship, and affects our ICP bonus pool, which in turn affects everyone?”
If necessary, impose a consequence… / “If you do not pay closer attention to the budgets established on projects, we’ll certainly have to address this as a performance-related issue.”

Ability

/ Ask for ideas, solicit feedback and brainstorm options / “What can we do to prevent this from happening in the future?”

The most critical piece to ensuring the problem doesn’t arise again is to follow-up! Determine who does what, by when and then follow-up on it to ensure compliance.

You can use the following model to assist you in working through a problem situation.

Providing Reinforcing Feedback

Reinforcing feedback should be a staple in all employee relationships. In particular, extra effort in reinforcing feedback should be given to those who are:

High performers
Going above and beyond in a particular case
Making improvements to a particular aspect of his/her job
Improving performance after corrective action feedback or a corrective action meeting

Giving effective verbal feedback is usually the most effective form of rewarding and motivating employees at all levels.

Look for opportunities - especially in turnaround situations, and when high performance is “standard”

Communicate the situation – what you observed and how it differs from the usual

Communicate the consequences of the action – explain what happened as a result

Reward and recognize the action – in many cases, this may mean simply expressing your appreciation by saying “Thank you.” This might be done in private or as recognition in front of others. If an additional tangible reward is appropriate, see the Rewards and Recognition link on the HR web page.

Example:

Communicate the positive situation / “You have finished the task in two hours. We budgeted it for three because it normally takes three hours.”
Communicate the consequences / “Because this was a fixed-price project, that one hour of your time drops right to the bottom line of our profitability on this project.”
– or –
“That means we don’t have to play catch-up anymore by working after hours.”
Reward and recognize / “Thank you. I really appreciate your efforts.”
– or in a group –
“I’d like to recognize Chris for finishing the XYZ task in just 2 hours. As you know, it normally takes three hours and, because Chris was able to get it done in two, we may be able to start the next step earlier.

It has to be consciously practiced at first until it becomes natural. It’s difficult to do for some, but the results are typically positive and rewarding for both giver and receiver.