Why managers don’t get feedback
There are several reasons why your team may not give feedback to you.
- It’s possible your team doesn’t know what to give feedback about or know that they have permission to give it.
- Maybe your team doesn’t see good examples of feedback so they don’t know that it is expected in your feedback culture.
- It’s possible your team fears giving feedback upwards because they a bad experience doing so in the past.
How to get your team to give feedback to you
In order to move past these blockers try these three things:
- Teach them how to give feedback. A simple model like Situation, Behavior, Impact will give them a starting point.
- Show them by modeling the behavior you want to see. Give feedback in public and private, often and with high quality. This is arguably the most important one. Your team will mimic your behavior.
- Ask for feedback. A pro tip is to share 3 things you are working on each quarter and encourage feedback in those areas.
The most important step
A key thing to remember is when your team gives you feedback, say “thank you.” You don’t have to agree with the feedback or even act on it. But do acknowledge the time, effort and guts it took to give it to you. If you want to keep feedback flowing on your team, be sure to say “thank you.”
Micro-learning video
How Tandem can help
Looking to support your team with feedback in their day to day? Tandem is there with your team in their workflow to support feedback best practices. Get started here!
