Feedback is important to the growth of your organization. It’s the catalyst that opens doors for improvement regardless of the position of the person being evaluated. Feedback paves the way for breakthroughs that otherwise would not happen without it.
How do you go about your performance evaluation? Are you getting specific feedback, enough to bring about concrete changes in your organization? Let’s look at the vital questions you need to ask within your team to ensure healthy and effective feedback conversations!
Ask Start Questions
You need to ask your team what you need to start doing in relation to what they’re currently doing. For example, “Can you start investing in our current IT infrastructure so we can develop better automated options for our customer service?” It’s not enough that they tell you what you need to do, they should be able to specify how that action will benefit or help them in their current job. Feedback is designed to help and build up your people, so make sure you don’t miss out on that!
Ask Stop Questions
Sometimes you’re doing pretty much all the right things and there’s no need to do more. But there are things that you ought to stop doing. For example, “Can you stop asking for monthly reports so I can focus more on the current project you’ve given me?” Maybe at this particular season when you’re about to launch a product it would be better to skip on the monthly and maybe settle for a quarterly report. Stop questions will help you know the current struggle of your team members because these are the things that stress them out!
Ask Continue Questions
These questions tell you what you should keep doing so they can also continue what they’re doing effectively. Compared to the start questions which address the lack and the stop questions that address the excess, continue questions are the feedback equalizer giving you a clear picture of what you’re doing right and how it affects your people. For example, “Can you continue the one-on-one coaching every month so I can keep growing in my leadership and relational skills? It will give you an idea what specific needs you’re able to address, too!
Make sure that your team members receive the same form of feedback using these questions. It will help them see their performance objectively and pinpoint specifically their areas of improvement. Some of the feedback you will receive may be difficult when handled this way but the more it hits home, the more necessary it is to pay attention and take action!
The process of giving and receiving feedback is a detailed process that needs careful planning. There are multiple tools you can use to help you develop a fully-optimized system that solicits feedback efficiently and translates it to actionable steps. Drop me a line here if you want to know more! I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have!
