Nobody likes negative feedback. I have flashbacks to a college writing professor with a gravelly voice who soberly intoned that my story submission was “uncooked.” Somehow, the way he said it, the word acquired a couple of extra syllables. On occasion, the word still drones, slowly, in my head to this day.
But the feedback was motivating, and most people can be moved to start cooking when they know what their mistakes are. Even so, there are right and wrong ways to deliver that bad news. That’s especially important in the association space, where volunteer groups usually operate without compensation, and where poor morale has a way of becoming infectious.
At Harvard Business Review, author and former executive Steve Vamos recently ran through some of the common mistakes that managers make when delivering negative feedback: dodging a tough conversation for an extended period, for instance, or lack of clarity about where somebody is falling short. But the most valuable piece of advice Vamos offers, I think, is to frame negative feedback firmly but with a goal to better understand why somebody (or a whole team) has fallen short.
Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.