As a Managing Director (MD) it’s difficult to get any real feedback from your employees. If asked each is going to lie to you and tell you how effective your motivational speech was during the weekly meeting or company update. Who has the nerve to tell the MD that he/she doesn’t listen or gets defensive when their initiatives don’t deliver the needed results?
Peter Bregman, an author, has recently written in the Harvard Business Review about how to elicit truthful feedback from your staff. Here are some of his suggestions below:
Be explicit about the need for honesty
To get people to tell the truth, you need to push them to be honest. It’ll be hard for them to let their guard down, but make them comfortable and position it as them “doing a favour for you.” Impress upon your employees that you need to get the most out of their feedback and that they shouldn’t hold back.
Position the conversation around the future
It’s easier for your employees to speak about what hasn’t happened yet ie: your future behaviour. Bregman says if you ask what you can do better going forward instead of asking what you’ve messed up in the past, they’ll be more forthcoming. He says people will be more at ease and will be more honest while telling you how to be more effective.
Dig deeper
Unless your employees are used to this kind of honest feedback, you’re going to need to probe them a few times. Asking once is not enough. “Give people multiple opportunities to give you real feedback, to increase the chances they’ll feel comfortable doing so,” Bregman says. Identify and break down certain situations and ask about specific instances you want feedback on. Eventually, they will start to give you honest opinions about particular scenarios that will help you get more insight on your leadership.
Listen, but don’t judge
The second your brow furrows, the employee will stop being honest with you. Do not place any judgment on the feedback, just listen to both the positive and negative. Make sure to thank them for their honesty, especially when it hurts. The more they see you’re reacting positively, the more honest they’ll be.
Write it all down
The act of writing it down is not only so you remember, it also helps to create silences. Bregman says if you write down what they say, there will be some time between when they finish their sentence and when you finish writing it down. The employee will want to fill in those silences, which will lead to a deeper, more hidden honesty about your leadership style.
