Why is it so hard to tell our employees (or our spouses and friends, for that matter) that they’re doing something that’s not working and need to change? Most often, we’re worried about the other person’s reaction. What if she gets angry? What if he cries? What if she tells me I’m an idiot? What if he gets super defensive and starts blaming me? Another thing that makes it hard is not knowing what to say.
Source: Forbes, June 20, 2012. Link. Listen first. This may seem counter-intuitive; if you’ve finally screwed your courage to the sticking point, you probably just want to get it over with. But I strongly encourage you to start by letting the other person know that you’d like to talk with them about something, and then inviting them to share their point of view. This might sound like, “Jack, I’d like to talk about the XYZ Project. What do you think has been going well, and not so well?”
INSIGHTS: It’s worth getting reasonably comfortable and skillful at giving employees corrective feedback. Otherwise, they’ll fly blind. When you let people know what they need to do differently to improve and be more likely to succeed, you help them, yourself and your organization.