Job Feedback

Giving, Seeking, and Using Feedback for Performance Improvement

Manuel London

• Éditeur: Psychology Press
• Année: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781135626099
• Édition: 2
• Sujet: Psychologie
• Sous-sujet: Histoire et théorie en psychologie

This book discusses how people evaluate themselves, relate to others who give them feedback, and process information about others. It examines how feedback is given and received in teams and cross-cultural organizations, and explores the impact that feedback has on changing technologies.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781410608871-1

Meaningful feedback is central to performance management. Feedback guides, motivates, and reinforces effective behaviors and reduces or stops ineffective behaviors. However, although feedback is an important management tool, many people feel uncomfortable giving and receiving feedback. They may give feedback as a way of reinforcing their self-image or manipulating how others see them rather than a means of improving others' or their own performance. Givers of feedback may be destructive or hurtful intentionally or unintentionally. In addition, they may be biased by factors unrelated to actual performance and, as a result, convey useless information. Receivers of feedback may be apprehensive about being evaluated, defensive in the face of negative feedback, or apt to ignore information that could improve their performance.

People often use negative terms when they observe and describe others, whereas they use positive terms to describe themselves (Langer, 1992). As a result, feedback may be disappointing and possibly detrimental. No feedback at all may be better in some cases. Feedback is not effective regardless of the content and manner in which it is given and regardless of the receiver's sensitivity to the information. Support mechanisms are needed to ensure that feedback is understood and used to set goals for improvement.

Such support mechanisms focus on the recipient's ability to comprehend the feedback, the recipient's sensitivity to feedback, the context, and accountability mechanisms. The recipient's ability to comprehend the feedback may depend on the extent to which the feedback conforms to the recipient's cognitive processing capabilities (e.g., it is not too detailed), causes the recipient to think about the task from others’ perspectives, and can be applied to improve job performance. These conditions depend on the control and credibility of different sources and the clarity, reliability, and validity of the information they provide. They may also depend on the organizational standards and expectations for behaviors associated with different perspectives connoted by the information, and on the availability of coaching and role models showing how the feedback can be applied. The recipient's sensitivity to feedback reflects the extent to which the recipient wants to learn and is able and motivated to process information from different sources. The context refers to what is happening in the organization and the demands and stressors experienced by those who give and receive feedback. Such conditions differentiate the recipient's role from that of others and suggest reasons (and rationalizations) for differences in perspectives. Accountability mechanisms are ways that the organization holds people responsible for giving and using feedback. These mechanisms may include requiring the recipient to explain and justify the use of feedback, encouraging employees to recognize that people may have different viewpoints about the same event, expecting raters to provide accurate and meaningful ratings, and rewarding improved performance.

In this volume, I examine how people give, seek, and use performance feedback. I describe processes by which givers of feedback perceive and judge performance, and I outline information processes by which receivers of feedback absorb (accept, deny, or ignore) and apply feedback. I consider formal sources of feedback including performance appraisal, multisource (upward and 360-degree) survey feedback methods, and assessment centers. I also examine the ways that individuals and groups receive informal feedback. This includes guidelines for how to give effective feedback under different conditions and how to hold people accountable for giving feedback.

I focus on the receiver of feedback by considering self-assessment, feedback seeking, and reactions to feedback. Several chapters provide questionnaires that employees (and readers) can use to evaluate themselves. This includes self-assessment of performance and sensitivity to feedback from others. I emphasize that individuals need to be proactive in getting feedback and show how to increase feedback. I describe how employees can draw on peers, subordinates, and other co-workers as sources of feedback in addition to information from one's supervisor. I also suggest how people can be held accountable for using feedback.

I consider ways managers become coaches and developers of their subordinates, how they establish long-term, growth-oriented relationships that enhance individual and group performance. I give special attention to ways managers use feedback to increase coordinated behavior in groups and generate win-win resolutions to conflict. I also show how goal setting permits people to get feedback about their own performance relative to their goals.

Overall, this volume demonstrates how managers can be more effective in gathering and processing performance information about subordinates, rating performance appraisals and multisource feedback surveys and feeding back this information in a way that is nonthreatening and leads to productive changes in behavior. Also, it shows how employees can gather, accept, and use meaningful performance information from appraisals, surveys, and informal discussions to change their own behavior. In doing so, the volume suggests how human resource practitioners and training professionals can help managers give and use feedback more effectively.

Because considerable work is done in teams and organizations are “going global,” I examine feedback in teams and cross-cultural (multinational) organizations. Also, because advancing communications technologies make feedback and development as close, as accessible and as portable as a wireless laptop computer, I examine how technology provides new means of collecting feedback and providing developmental resources. In addition, I consider how feedback is a means of communicating changing competency requirements as the nature of work evolves. I demonstrate how feedback programs are integrated into performance management systems to promote an organizational culture that supports continuous learning.

Background

Industrial and organizational psychologists have devoted considerable attention to studying and guiding formal performance appraisal processes, but less attention to feedback delivery and use. However, psychologists have long recognized the value of feedback to enhance job challenge,increase motivation, and facilitate learning when the information is meaningful and given in a helpful way. Knowledge of results is a critical psychological component of motivation that stems from performance feedback inherent in the task or job. Moreover, feedback is an important element of career motivation. Insight about oneself and the environment affects the stability and direction of one's career behavior. Such insight stems from performance feedback and information about potentially fruitful career directions. Also, feedback is an important element in learning. We know that people learn by modeling others, trying new behavior, and receiving feedback on how well they are doing.

That people do not like to give negative feedback is not surprising. They know that the recipient is likely to be defensive or hurt. However, many people avoid even patting others on the back for good performance. Some managers seem to feel embarrassed or threatened about giving favorable feedback that a subordinate or coworker deserves. Employees sometimes request feedback, but they usually do not do so when the results are likely to be negative and they cannot avoid accepting blame.

Unfortunately, many managers do not know how to give feedback, to say nothing of coaching and developing subordinates. Some do not even see giving feedback as part of their jobs. Indeed, they may view performance discussions as a distraction from day-to-day operations. They decry the expense of individual development that may result from feedback discussions, and they fear loosing an employee’s loyalty and friendship from negative feedback. Managers' reluctance to give feedback is especially problematic in organizations faced with tight resources and employee cutbacks. Standards of performance are increasing in these firms, and more and higher quality work is expected of everyone who remains. Marginal performance cannot be tolerated for long.

Elements of Feedback

Performance information may be objective, resulting from clearly visible performance output. Moreover, the amount and type of information may be under the control of the employees, who can select the information they want about how well they are doing. On the other hand, performance information may be subjective, arising from formal and informal evaluations made by others. Employees may seek such information on their own. More likely, their supervisor or coworkers deliver the information, whether employees want it or not. Employees may be receptive or defensive depending on factors such as the favorability of the feedback, the source's intention to be constructive, and the employee's self-confidence. The source's willingness to give feedback depends on factors such as the source’s ability to communicate, the source's comfort with giving a performance evaluation face-to-face or in writing, and the source's ability and desire to coach the employee in using the information to improve performance. Giving feedback may also depend on whether the organization expects performance feedback to be delivered as part of the management process.

Unfortunately, feedback has its dark side. For instance, managers may avoid giving feedback or may deliberately give destructive feedback. I cover the psychological, social, and situational antecedents of these all too common occurrences. I show how people give and seek feedback in ways that manage others' impressions of them. I relate destructive feedback to harassment and other forms of treatment abuse and discrimination on the job. I show how to encourage constructive feedback, develop functional feedback and growth-oriented interpersonal relationships, and discourage destructive feedback and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships.

Human Resource Programs

Mindful of human resource practice, I present examples of feedback methods integrated with different appraisal techniques. I also offer guidelines for improving the value of feedback and its use by recipients. This should help managers who struggle with the difficulty of discussing an individual's performance face-to-face with that individual. I show how improved feedback processes can be integrated into more effective and comprehensive human performance systems. Psychological and organizational barriers that intervene in the giving of effective feedback are discussed. I show how to design feedback systems for collecting reliable and telling information about performance from multiple sources and viewpoints, and I present ideas for program development that can be used in managerial assessment and training.

The volume is intended to be valuable for designing employee development programs, training supervisors in performance management, establishing more challenging jobs, building an integrated human performance system, and creating environments that enhance employees' career motivation. I cover ways to provide interdependent group members with information that increases their coordination and cooperation. I also demonstrate how to hold managers accountable for giving and using feedback.

A Word About Legal Issues

Managers must be aware of the legal implications of feedback. The performance review process must be conducted in a professional and fair manner, focused on behaviors and outcomes (not personalities) and free of discrimination unrelated to job performance. Any performance appraisal system used to make an employment decision about a member of a protected class (e.g., based on age, race, religion, gender, or national origin) must be a valid system (i.e., an accurate measure of performance associated with job requirements), or it may be challenged in the courts (based, for instance, on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1975). The use of rating systems that depend on subjective criteria and personality trait evaluations rather than evaluations of behavior may very well be worse than using none at all. Appraisals are subject to raters' subjective biases and prejudices (see chapter 5). Appraisal systems linked to goal setting must involve an ongoing procedure, such as the review process recommended in this volume (chapter 10). If only an annual or semiannual review meeting occurs that covers only the most recent performance information, it may not be a valid system, or may not provide acceptable justification for personnel decisions.

In addition to frequent performance discussions, ongoing documentation in behavioral terms is recommended. However, it must be remembered that this material is discoverable in a court suit, so it must be accurate and factual. The supervisor should be clear with the subordinate at the outset of the performance period about how the appraisal will be used. Also, managers should review their appraisals of subordinates with the next level of supervision as a way of holding the manager accountable for a thorough and fair evaluation.

A related legal and social issue is sexual harassment. Harassment can easily masquerade as feedback. Sexual harassment involves sexual favors or the creation of an environment that tolerates unwelcome sexual advances or language. The organization should have a clear policy prohibiting such behavior. Moreover, the performance review guidelines and associated training should include reference to this policy and should indicate that care should be taken to guard against creating a hostile environment in the review process. This includes any sexual advances, innuendos, or vulgar statements that an employee could consider hostile or objectionable.

Overview

This volume is divided into four sections. The first section covers perceptual processes that influence how people perceive themselves and use feedback, and how they perceive others as they prepare to give feedback. The second section describes means of collecting feedback data (appraisals, multisource feedback surveys, and assessment centers). The third section outlines ways to support people in using feedback (performance review and coaching) and hold them accountable for performance improvement. The final section examines current organizational and technological trends that influence feedback, ultimately leading to a feedback-oriented, continuous learning corporate culture.

The first section on person perception includes four chapters. Chapter 2 covers how and why feedback works. It examines why some people are so uncomfortable giving and receiving feedback. I enumerate the many potential benefits of feedback, distinguish between constructive and destructive feedback, and describe conditions that enhance feedback effectiveness.

Chapter 3 shows how people evaluate themselves. I review the literature on variables that determine the gap between self-ratings and ratings from others. This feedback gap is supposed to signal the need for development. However, some people may not see the need for change when they evaluate themselves more highly than others evaluate them. I look at variables that determine the extent to which people evaluate themselves accurately, revise their self-perceptions, establish goals for performance improvement, and make learning an ongoing process.

Chapter 4 continues the discussion about person perception by turning to interpersonal dynamics associated with giving and receiving feedback. It covers reactions to formal and informal feedback, self-regulatory mechanisms, feedback seeking, and impression management.

Chapter 5 focuses on how people process information about others as sources of feedback. The chapter covers research on the accuracy of interpersonal perceptions. It describes cognitive processes people use to encode, store, and decode information before giving feedback. The chapter discusses the effects on rater motivation, observation skills, and information-distorting biases.

The second section of the book describes methods for collecting feedback data. Chapter 6 describes traditional performance appraisal methods including a variety of commonly used rating methods. The chapter even covers “ratingless” appraisals as a way to avoid labeling people with a numeric rating.

Chapter 7 begins a discussion of multisource feedback surveys. These popular surveys collect ratings from a variety of sources: supervisors, subordinates, peers, and customers. The chapter explains why multisource feedback is used by so many companies as input for development. It outlines the pros and cons of using multisource feedback for development alone or for both development and administrative decisions. Guidelines for developing and implementing multisource feedback methods are offered.

Chapter 8 considers how employees react to multisource feedback and the extent to which it relates to behavior change and performance improvement. The chapter offers recommendations for evaluating multisource feedback programs. Chapter 9 describes assessment centers, computerized assessment, and business simulations as other sources of feedback.

The third section of the book indicates ways to support the use of feedback. Chapter 10 examines the manager's role as a provider of feedback. It describes how people come to realize that they really do need to change. Goal setting is examined as a key factor in making feedback useful. Feedback is likely to have little value if people do not use ...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• I PERSON PERCEPTION
• II PERFORMANCE EVALUATION METHODS
• III SUPPORTING THE USE OF FEEDBACK
• IV FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index