Sheela, the Director of products had a quarterly feedback session with her PM Sahil.
She conveyed the following to Sahil –
“Hello Sahil – Good to have you join our team (from the last quarter). Things have gotten better after you joined and started managing the customer experience initiatives.
Few long pending features are now live.
The product development process has been more or less streamlined and looks like we are in the right direction.
I need you to focus on a) Data-driven decision-making and b) Developing good rapport with cross-functional stakeholders”
Sahil felt good and interpreted the above feedback as –
“ I am doing a very good job. There are a couple of minor observations that need to be corrected. If I put small effort into these, I should be fine”.
But wait… What Sheela intended to say was –
“Well, things have started moving and we see things getting delivered more often than before. No doubt about that.
But I am a bit disappointed with the lack of data-driven prioritization. You are prioritizing based on gut calls instead of solid data.
Also, your relationship with some of the business stakeholders has been rocky. My time is sometimes getting wasted trying to reconcile between you and your stakeholders.
For someone being a PM and wanting to grow to the next level, I expect you to be very good with both (data & stakeholder management).
In summary, you need to double up and improve in these areas. Take my help wherever required.”
Why is Sheela not able to effectively communicate the feedback?
Two reasons –
- Sheela is worried that the feedback might sound “harsh”. So instead of modifying the tone, she ends up modifying the content.
- Sheela feels that Sahil is very sensitive (based on her past observations). She is worried that Sahil might interpret the candid feedback as an extremely negative judgement and might either panic or enter into a denial or self-pity mode. Another rare possibility is that he might consider leaving the company. This was not the intended effect of giving feedback.
While it is very reasonable for the manager to expect the team members to be objective while interpreting feedback, in reality, one can find all shades of interpretation. This can vary based on their background, region’s culture, past experiences with bad managers etc.
How could have Sheela solved this?
This problem cannot be solved just by changing the language/content used in the feedback session. This needs trust building right from Day-1 of working together with one’s direct reports.
Important activities that managers like Sheela need to do :
1. Start talking about the career path of the team members even before they start asking about the same. This ensures that team members feel that the manager is a supporter and not someone who is only judging one’s work.
2. Talk openly about your personal experiences receiving negative feedback, how you reacted then and how far you have grown in handling them. That would help team members understand that receiving negative feedback is quite natural and not a thing to panic about.
As a manager, being vulnerable by sharing past experiences helps a long way.
