"Some managers may be hesitant to have difficult performance discussions with employees amid the pandemic, thinking it isn’t constructive to deliver critiques when people are under so much personal and professional stress." - Tom Gimbel, The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2021.
The burden can be on you to push for the feedback you need - even if you anticipate some of it may be upsetting.
As Dale Carnegie courses teach, approach your employer, client or customer in a friendly manner. A bit casual. Talk about sports or the better weather. Share tidbits about your workout program.
Then let them know that you need to know how to be as useful to them as possible. Therefore, you open the door to feedback. Add, in a relaxed way, that you are ready for the good and the bad and the ugly.
Yes, feedback, whether it's the good, the bad or the ugly, is usually one of those difficult conversations. That's because no one in the loop knows how the information will be received. Often what is intended as positive can be absorbed as negative. For example, the employer praises the worker for proofreading documents more thoroughly. Immediately the employee panics that there is a "bad mark" on the record for being slopply earlier.
The difficulty is increased exponentially in a virtual workplace. Even with Zoom, there is a lack of communications signals to assess how the conversation is going. Also, there can be ambiguity on how all the parties are "feeling."
Yet COVID-19 is changing so much. Uncertainty is the new normal. That increases exponentially the need for sustained input from employers, clients and customers.
Takeaway: Figure out how to shake feedback from those who determine how you make your living.
Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)
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