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Mr. Brown is coming! The Need for Feedback and Coaching
“Get a move on, Mr. Brown is coming!” Those were the words I heard about once a month when I was a 14-year-old kid working as a stock boy in a retail store. It was usually my store manager making the statement. And Mr. Brown was our district manager who came to inspect our store. The visit lasted a few hours and during that time he would walk the store and look for things he didn’t like. I have no recollection of him ever speaking directly to me, although I remember him watching from a distance as I moved freight or stocked shelves. He seldom spoke to anyone other than the store manager or assistant store manager. Even department managers were denied his attention.
Then, a day or two after his visit, either my store manager or assistant store manager would “read me the riot act” about something Mr. Brown didn’t like. It was usually something in the back room, or a display I had made. I recall one time in particular when it was alleged that I had been distracted during the DM’s visit. I was too frightened to ask what “distracted,” meant, so I just said, “Yes sir.” Later I found “distracted” in the dictionary and wondered how it related to me and the way I stocked shelves.
That type of leadership style was typical in those days—ruling by fear and intimidation. Perhaps it would have been demeaning for a district manager to speak to a lowly stock boy. But to me he signified all that was successful and powerful. I thought to myself, some day I would like to have that much power. But if I do, I won’t forget the people who move the product from the back door to the sales floor and then out the front door.
Now, over four decades later with a lot of retail experience and more education than anyone really needs, I understand why I felt as I did in the early years of my career. I desperately wanted someone to accept me and value my contributions. I was seeking validation for my efforts. In short, I wanted someone in authority to pay attention to me. But unfortunately, in that archaic leadership climate, I never got it. It took eight years of working in that store before I figured out that I deserved better.
What I wanted many years ago is the same thing employees want today. Nothing has changed, because the basic psychology and needs of people haven’t changed. What I wanted then, and what employees want today is interpersonal feedback and developmental coaching.
The amount, quality, and type of feedback and coaching employees receive is directly related to such basic work issues as being trustworthy, demonstrating initiative, showing morale, getting along, and working productively. The failure to provide adequate feedback is one of the primary causes of such problems as high turnover, theft, shrink, poor customer service, poor operating conditions, and low work performance.
If you doubt this, remember, the denial of feedback is the most severe form of psychological punishment one person can inflict upon another person. When someone makes us angry, at home or at work, one of our first inclinations is to deny that person feedback. And we do that by giving him or her the “cold shoulder.” The reason we use feedback denial at such times is that we know from experience how we feel when others do the same thing to us—it hurts!
Feedback and coaching is more important than we think. Actually, interpersonal feedback is a critical nutrient of life. We can only go a few minutes without air, a few days without water, and a few weeks without food. That’s because those are the three most important physiological nutrients of life for humans. But most people don’t’ realize that the fourth most important nutrient of life for a mentally healthy person is interpersonal feedback. That’s right, feedback is in a similar category to the three physiological nutrients.
When a person is denied feedback for even a few hours, that person can not only feel the results of the denial, but that person is likely to respond with unproductive and/or inappropriate behaviors. So if your employees aren’t producing like they should, or if you see inappropriate
behaviors from them, it’s possible that the underlying cause is the quality and/or quantity of feedback they are receiving, probably from you. And don’t forget that the same thing is true at home with your children.
The quality of any relationship, business or personal, is dependent on the quality and quantity of feedback each person receives from the other. If the feedback is poor, so is the relationship. If the feedback is critical or abusive, so is the relationship. But, if the feedback is positive, so can be the relationship.
Corporate executives, support staff, store managers, and department managers can become blinded to the fact that social pleasantries are an important type of feedback. Saying to an employee, “Good morning, Ann, how was your weekend?” is important feedback. What could be viewed by some people as irrelevant or unnecessary chit-chat, is actually very important feedback to most people.
Eye contact is a type of feedback. When we fail to look someone in the eye, we are in essence denying that person a form of feedback. We are saying you aren’t important enough for me to bother giving you brief eye contact. In our western culture, effective feedback must include at least reasonable eye contact.
Some people require more feedback and coaching than others. We call these people high maintenance because they can demand so much of our time. Managers often shy away from giving these people any feedback at all, because they are afraid the more they give the more the employee will want. But in reality, by denying a high maintenance person feedback, we actually make the total situation worse, not better.
By denying me and the other employees feedback many years ago, Mr. Brown used a form of psychological punishment on the people he needed to make him successful. I don’t know what his profit numbers were in those days, because they were kept a closely guarded secret. Whatever they were, they could have been better. None of us in that store worked anywhere near our capabilities. The amount and type of feedback we received caused us to work just hard enough to get by. Remember, it’s the hourly employees who can make or break productivity. It’s the hourly employees who have the ability to give a store a friendly personality, or not. It’s the hourly employees who can make things happen, or not. And to a large degree it’s the hourly employees who can make a store profitable, or not. Employees need and deserve feedback and coaching. With it they can make things happen; and without it they can make sure things don’t happen.
In this article we’ve looked at the importance of interpersonal feedback and coaching in the work environment. Try this experiment. Measure each day whether or not you have contact with each employee. If you have contact, what type is it? How much is it? Is it positive, negative, critical, constructive, corrective, or abusive? What results do you see from your contact? Did the employee react the way you expected? By measuring a baseline of your feedback you’ll be able to track your progress as you work to improve it in the future.
“Fill My Bucket” the feedback workshop is based on the book, Tell Me How I’m Doing, by Richard L. Williams, Ph.D. It is designed to acquaint participants with the four types of feedback and give methods for delivering the two most effective types. To learn more about the “Fill My Bucket” feedback workshop or CMOE’s Coaching Skills workshop, contact a CMOE Representative toll free at (888)262-2499.
About the author:
Dr. Richard L. Williams is a retail consultant where he specializes in quality improvement, performance coaching, feedback, and leadership development. Visit http://www.cmoe.com/coaching.htmfor more information.
In his 30 plus years of experience, Dr. Williams has conducted more than 3,800 workshops to more than 100,000 managers and executives around the world. He can be reached at vleadership@earthlink.net
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