Creating a Positive Work Culture with Negative Feedback

How people treat each other on the job can get in the way of getting the job done.  It seems obvious when you say it out loud, but most leaders are taught to focus on the technical aspects of work.  They aren't often taught to manage employee interactions that hinder workplace productivity.

Leaders are sometimes encouraged to look for the social or psychological reasons behind employees' relationship mistakes in the workplace, but in most cases a leader won't be able to change WHY an employee is troublesome or difficult.  The important thing is to focus on changing workplace behavior!

Examples:  If employees are interrupting, making sexist remarks, bossing others, or making negative comments, you probably can't change how he or she feels.  In most cases it's difficult to change the reason a person is offending coworkers; but a leader can be very effective at changing the behavior, in these cases requesting to talk, stopping sexist remarks, making requests, increased positive comments.  (See Interpersonal Performance Problems for other examples.)

Viewing an employee's behavior at face value, and working from there to change it, is one of the main features that distinguishes Line-Level Leadership® from other management and leadership development and consultation models.

The approach is practical; the coaching is also.  Seminars use Direct Instruction methodologies and are highly interactive with live demonstrations accompanied by participants practice of realistic job interactions.

Along with the skills development, some common but avoidable leadership errors are also discussed at Line-Level Leadership® seminars.  Examples:

1. Leaders tend to identify interpersonal relationship problems as personality or motivational problems.
   Leaders can identify on-the-job relationship errors as performance problems and approach them as they would any other performance error.
   

2. Leaders often want to refer an employee to an outside source to solve the employee's behavior problems.
   A Human Resources consultant, training program or senior manager can be supportive, but the employee's immediate and skilled leader is the most effective change agent.
   

3. Leaders tend to wait too long before giving negative performance feedback.
   If a leader knows how to address negative interpersonal relationship issues, she or he will be more comfortable giving feedback and will get to it sooner.  Employees are more willing to change when they know clearly what is expected of them.

One of the most important aspects of managing and changing employee behavior is to assert a point of view.  We are raised not to say what we are thinking if it might offend someone.  But an effective leader makes clear what is expected, for both interpersonal job performance AND technical job performance.

Responsive Management Systems^® is a resource for improving operations performance.  Its Mission -- to create preferred and productive work environments.

Suggestions, recommendations, and strategies for improving abound.  Our firms and organizations are working hard at being customer driven, re-engineered, sensitive to diversity, collaborative and continuously improving. One aspect of organizational life that is common to all paradigms (models), to all industries and essential to success is the work-group's one-on-one and team interpersonal communication skills.  These skills are core to managing talent in any group endeavor whether new or mature and are the business of Responsive Management Systems^®.

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Rev:  02/28/10