secret to success: the art of giving and taking feedback.
by rick telberg
on careers
we’ve been asking accountants and finance managers lately how well their offices use feedback to keep folks happy. it’s clear that a little do-and-don’t advice seems in order for some of the nation’s accounting firms and finance departments.
our sources reported some pretty big problems on the do side. out of seven questions in a study launched in this space (join the study and get the report free), five showed that fewer than half the accounting and finance offices nationwide were doing what they should be doing all (or most) of the time.
feedback offered on behavior rather than on personality, for example: only eight percent of managers do it all the time, and only 37 percent do it frequently. a full fifth do it rarely or never.
ouch! whoever’s doing the feedback could use a little feedback themselves.
good managers do offer feedback based on facts, but 20 percent of respondents say such constructive criticism rarely or never happens.
good managers do offer feedback with bona fide intent to improve employees, but 40 percent of respondents rarely if ever see such well-intentioned comments.
good managers do offer feedback on issues the employee can control, but 18 percent of respondents said they are never or rarely offered advice on issues they could control.
good managers darn well better offer feedback in private, but only 26 percent said they hear feedback in private, though 40 percent said they frequently do, and another 24 percent have the benefit of privacy at least sometimes. but a crude and clumsy ? and dare we say cruel ? nine percent of managers deploy their criticism within earshot of others.
we wanted to cross-check the information because we’re not sure how well we could rely on the first set of questions. so we turned the questions around, not asking how often offices are doing it right, but instead how often they do it wrong.
the results seemed just a tad better on this “don’t” side of the survey.
good managers don’t let feedback get personal, but 23 percent of respondents said it happens frequently if not always.
good managers don’t give feedback where others can hear, but 16 percent of respondents suffered critique en publique frequently or all the time.
good managers don’t let feedback get generalized beyond the specifics of the problem, but it happens a lot to 30 percent of the respondents.
good managers don’t let the situation get out of hand before they offer corrective feedback, but 43 percent of respondents often or always see managers wait until too late.
good managers don’t give comments on issues the employee can’t control, but almost a quarter of respondents hear that kind of criticism often or always.
good managers don’t make feedback feel like a verbal attack, but 27 percent of respondents often or always hear it that way.
feedback on behavior is more than a management tool. it’s the fundamental way humans learn to participate and cooperate in society, and that includes such micro-societies as accounting firms and finance departments.
good managers do use feedback to reward good behavior and correct the unacceptable.
good managers don’t use it to hurt or humiliate, not even unintentionally. feedback can backfire, and that’s not the way to keep an office happy.
do give your feedback some thought, and don’t get it wrong.
[first published by the aicpa]