Feedback That Changes Behavior

The most difficult aspect of leading, managing, and supervising is providing performers with negative feedback. Most people report public speaking as their number one fear; for anyone in a management role, providing one-on-one negative feedback holds that number one spot. Many managers not only avoid feedback, they do not do provide it at all.

Annual or bi-annual performance reviews are hated by everyone—employee and manager alike. In many companies, performance reviews and salary reviews are synonymous; the performance review provides the rationale for whether one receives a raise and how much that raise is going to be. It is often humorously acknowledged that everyone is on his or her best behavior for a few weeks prior to performance review time.

Generally, supervisors dread the performance review like the plague. For a supervisor or manager, the term “performance review” connotes uncomfortable past experiences. Even the smoothest performance reviews are accompanied by disagreement and tense discussions. The really hairy ones can have confrontation, emotional arguments, and…well the experience rivals the hostilities of a married couple after a boozy New Year’s Eve party.

Performance reviews are anachronisms. The usual outcome is that employee and supervisor become aversive to each other for a month or two. Of course, the culprit is negative feedback. The employee does not want to hear it (it is aversive by definition), and the supervisor does not want to deliver it (and usually is not skilled in the art.)

The purpose of the performance review is to change behavior, and the annual performance reviews are undeniably ineffective in obtaining that end. Real behavior change is the result of daily interactions between manager and employee. At best, the performance review focuses on the effects of employee behavior on some performance result. Employee behavior is not changed in a review; it is changed in the work setting.

Secondly, because the experience is so aversive to the manager, he or she tends to stay away from negative feedback as much as possible. The end result of their avoidance behavior is that performance feedback important to the employee’s job success is suppressed. Many employees have been demoted or fired with little or no forewarning that they were not giving satisfaction in their jobs.

Managers and supervisors should provide their subordinates with constructive feedback on a regular basis—feedback about behavior, not just results. Employee performance—job results, are the outcome of numerous contributory behaviors that can be observed and identified by a knowledgeable supervisor—one trained in Behavior Management. The management of employee behavior—increasing the frequency of value–added behaviors and decreasing the frequency of dysfunctional or unnecessary behaviors—is the manager’s most important task.

Learning how to provide constructive feedback—particular corrective feedback is the scorecard for performance management efficacy. If a supervisor cannot address behavioral discrepancies, then the employee can not improve their job performance. Most managers react to results, a downstream measure of human performance. Behavior is the controlling factor for all performance results. Understanding how to provide tactful corrective feedback for undesirable behaviors is as important as the prudent and efficient use of positive reinforcement.

How do you make bad news palatable?—you have to be relaxed. Tension is an incubator for reactivity and emotionalism. With the proper preparation, you can comfortably engage an employee even when you know that you are going to be discussing some of their performance deficiencies. Preparation requires that you remind yourself that the purpose of your discussion and the feedback is to “help” the employee.

If you repeat to yourself that your purpose is to facilitate, to coach, to help the employee—with truth and tact and legitimate concern, then you will relax because you have identified yourself as a positive agent in the process. A supervisor-employee performance discussion where both parties recognize the supervisor’s intent is to help, not hurt, can be one of the most reinforcing experiences in one’s worklife.

It is entirely appropriate to begin a feedback session or performance review with positive, personal topics. Start the event by relaxing both the manager and the employee; talk about some topics that are reinforcing to the employee. Create a positive context from which to begin the discussion. Remember, you will not change any targeted performance behavior in a feedback session or performance review. What you can do is provide clear identification of the behavior you would like to see changed (increased in frequency or modified in some way), or the new behavior you want or perhaps a behavior you would like to see stopped.

At the very least, the feedback dialog will clearly identify behavior that is aversive to you as the manager. Most employees will attempt to avoid behaving in ways that they are certain their manager or supervisor does not like.

It is important to use provisional language in performance review; avoid categorical statements. Many supervisors pridefully affect an aggressive persona regarding employee feedback. They brag about “telling it like it is,” or “being direct and honest,” (often a euphemism for being callously critical.)

After you have had a few moments of positive conversation, you should begin the feedback dialog by pointing out the employee's strengths; “Bob, the quality and accuracy of your report writing is extremely high. I always feel that any job you do will be finished on time.” Beginning with positives is a fair and honest way to start the discussion. The supervisor has a chance to relax and the employee is not guarded. It is a good beginning.

Don’t confuse a feedback session, the purpose of which is to change specific behavior, with a problem solving discussion in which you have to talk about something that went wrong—a discussion in which you are talking with the employee to determine what caused a problem. You can stop and say, “What went wrong yesterday with the backup system?” without having to follow the guidelines for a feedback dialog.

At the appropriate moment in your feedback dialog, you can state your behavioral concern: “Jim, sometimes I feel like you do the work yourself when you could delegate it to someone else.”

Notice the use of the words “sometimes,” and “could,” to soften the comment. It would be easy to be categorical and preemptive as—“Jim, you always do the work yourself when you should be delegating it to other people.”

The first statement is likely to be thoughtfully received, while the second may create a defensive reaction. If the employee has, in the past, successfully backed down the supervisor by expressing outrage or emotional disagreement, he or she has been positively reinforced for that behavior (a good example of how positive reinforcement often encourages behavior we do not want) and may exhibit that behavior in this situation regardless of the diplomacy of the comment.

The manager's tone, body language, and the words selected (their connotations) effect the emotions of both the manager and the employee. The emotions need to be managed before you can deal with the performers behavior. If the manager uses accusatory words or blunt, critical words it makes the employee defensive and angry--which in turn shuts down his or her receptivity to important behavioral feedback.

If the manager understands behavior management, then he or she is prepared for the employee's reactivity. Leaders and managers who have been taught Behavior Management are aware of how their words and non-verbal behavior are acting as positive reinforcers and punishers in a performance review This training allows the manager to selectively reinforce the behavior of the employee during a feedback session--in real time. Although job behavior cannot be changed in a review setting, the employee's verbal behavior within that setting can be changed effectively.

As you identify a behavior that needs changing, like “Jim, sometimes I feel like you do the work yourself when you could delegate it to someone else,” then ask the employee a question about their response to your comment--a question like, “How do you feel about that?” or “Do your observations of your behavior agree with mine?” To ask an employee to observe their own behavior establishes a strong participative discussion environment; the employee is empowered to become an active participant in his or her performance evaluation. Most employees will react positively to this opportunity and eagerly participate in their own evaluation.

In this instance, Jim might say, “I am aware that I tend to do too much of the work myself, when I should be assigning it too someone else. It’s a habit I need to break.”

At this point, the manager can reinforce the response honestly (if you don’t feel it, don’t say it; the employee can tell the difference) by saying something like—“That was a good insight into your own behavior Jim. Are there any other behaviors you've targeted to work on?”

This response allows the employee to gain control of his own evaluation and make self-observations that his manager can reinforce. This partnership in performance management pairs the manager as a strong positive stimulus--as a reinforcer, and encourages Jim to take a self-management role in his own performance management.

One objective of Participative Positive Reinforcement is to create a workplace in which managers and employees partner to reinforce and recognize value added behavior, another is to provide a employees with an empowered process that allows them to identify and influence their own behavior. We want employees to know how to identify and manage their own behavior; that is the ultimate objective of Participative Positive Reinforcement.

Next blog—more about changing behavior with constructive feedback.

Shocking Facts About Human Behavior

I thought I would record a few random, disjointed observations about behavior and positive reinforcement in the workplace in a sincere effort to shock and surprise my readers. Explaining why one supports a particular idea, belief or perspective can be quite tiring; it is much more fun to just say what you think and leave the room—figuratively of course.

So, here are some observations you may find interesting:

One of a leaders key responsibilities is the behavior of his or her subordinates.

Changing someone’s behavior usually means changing your own.

Many managers hire and promote average performers; high performers can be threatening and challenging.

The reluctance of leaders to fire senior managers who perform poorly seriously erodes profitability.

Most managers would rather deal with numbers than with people; talking to people about their performance is emotionally aversive.

Most of our behavior attempts to influence the behavior of others.

A manager’s behavior influences the behavior of everyone who reports to them; subordinates attempt to please him or her and avoid doing anything that would anger them.

What people say to each other and how they say it (tone of voice, facial gestures) may be the most important, controllable factor in a company’s profitability.

There is no such thing as “just business;” the workplace is highly emotional. Hierarchies sensitize individuals to subtle nuances of language and non-verbal behavior that reflect upon their value and stature.

Praising a subordinate in front of others can be as damaging as criticizing them publicly.

Weaknesses in subordinates are reinforcing to weak managers.

Initiative in subordinates is punishing to weak leaders.

Saying negative things about other employees pairs you with aversive stimuli and subsequently you become aversive to the listener. Saying positive things can have the opposite effect.

The things that reinforce or punish people are not related to logic or reason.

Attention and eye-contact often inadvertently reinforce employees for dysfunctional behavior.

Compliments, money, and attention are quite aversive to many people.

Subordinates can sense sincere reinforcement by reading the gestures and inflection that convey positive emotion.

The behavior that gets people promoted is emulated by other employees.

Subordinates determine what kinds of behavior are reinforcing and punishing to their manager by listening to his questions and comments.

Asking an employee for his advice is usually a strong reinforcer.

Positive or negative comments about a person who is not present can establish them as a reinforcer or an aversive stimulus; language has the power to effect stimulus value prior to actual experience.

Although there is no great wisdom reflected in these observations, some are counterintuitive—others axiomatic. Most leaders and managers do not understand how classical conditioning works. If you say negative things, then you are paired with aversive stimuli and you become an aversive stimulus. If you repeat that someone has said negative things, then that person becomes a negative stimulus to anyone listening.

Correspondingly, positive comments (words, phrases, gestures, inflection—real emotion) establishes you as a positive stimulus—a reinforcer to those with whom you speak. If you repeat positive things about another employee, like “You know Jim said he really admires your writing skill,” then both you and the other employee (in this case, Jim) become positive stimuli.

One of the reasons that traditional training in Positive Reinforcement fails, and subsequently leaders fail to use Reinforcement effectively, is because classical conditioning—the effect of language and pairing—is not included in the training.

The Root Cause of Human Behavior

I apologize for taking so long to post this blog. A rogue spam robot identified this blog as a potential spam blog, and the folks at Blogger had me blocked for 20+ days while they personally inspected the blog. I would label this experience as a window into the dark side of technology--a side most of us will see sometime in the future.
Secondly, I hyperlinked the terms isomorphic, homologous, Applied Behaviour Analysis, Lean principles, and Six Sigma but the blog will not hold the links. So, you will have to Google the terms that are new for you.

Recently I’ve reached a personal “tipping point,” in regard to understanding human organizational behavior. Possibly, others have had a similar learning experience. At one time, I believed that I understood everything; I was patently certain that I could explain everything with a few basic precepts.

Time and experience eroded my self-confidence; the principles and practice of one discipline solved many problems, but left many unsolved. I started looking at other theories and disciplines—finding intriguing explanations for why people do the things they do. Unfortunately, the more I read the more confused I became. It was not unlike my experiences in reading philosophy (a fleeting experience I admit); I found something of value in every school of thought.

I saw that many apparently conflicting disciplines were talking about the same things using different words. The imprecision of language and the broadly different ways we experience reality lead us to explain things uniquely. Beneath the veneer of exaggerated differences lay complementary unification. Theories and explanatory models were isomorphic and homologous.

When one takes any approach, discipline, perspective, theory, or philosophy to its extremes, it becomes unintelligible. You can hardly blame anyone for seeking “the answer,”—the causal explanation. The ambiguity one experiences when confronted by several approaches—each equally convincing, but often mutually contradictory—encourages one to seek the psychological protection of one definitive answer. The riotous onslaught of authorities with their incontestable certitude drives us to seek some friendly port against this storm--one explanatory model of human behavior.

Each of us, by virtue of our genetics, developmental history, hormones, biochemistry, neurological makeup, behavioral history, the social context in which we are operating, and real-time situational factors is driven toward a way of interpreting what we see and hear—our special perspective. We are driven, heliotropically to engage the answers that best suit our nature; we are drawn like a magnet toward a world picture that suits us.

I struggled against the discomfort of trying to find a path through the maze. The book stores’ shelves hold hundreds of books on management theory and leadership, and the shelves of college book stores house dozens of competing theories that inform the authors of those books. The experts defend their fortresses of theoretical primacy, but I saw many interdisciplinary opportunities and salient synergies. When the rush of alternatives and competing ideas reached cognitive critical mass, I had my “tipping point.”

Organizations appear to go through a similar search for a comfortable understanding of their own dynamics, but since groups learn differently than individuals, thought and theories do not become organized and differentiated—learning is slow. Because organizations usually learn very slowly, the tipping point for an organization may only occur after performance problems have reached a critical mass.

Subsequently, many companies have gone through legions of performance improvement initiatives and supervisory and leadership training models. It is not unusual to find a business unit training their managers and supervisors in strategies that have conflicting theoretical underpinnings. Profiles and assessments that tell leaders and supervisors “what kind of traits, style, or personality,” they have are interesting, but using and applying the information is problematic. The ROI is seldom investigated.

Therefore, practical necessity demanded that I assign behavioral psychology—Applied Behavior Analysis, with its powerful principles of positive reinforcement, to its proper position in my understanding of organizational behavior. Behavior Analysis provides one with information about “why” someone in an organization (or any setting) says or does something. The behavioral platform presents a causal algorithm—a root cause analysis template for human action.

Lean principles and Six Sigma are robust tools for eliminating waste and improving quality in organizational processes. Similarly, Behavior Analysis is a powerful tool for explaining what environmental factors—what specific, precise physical or social factors—cause or caused an employee to do something (to behave in a certain way) and whether or not he or she is likely to behave that way again. Behavior Analysis brings the same explanatory rigor to human behavior that Lean brings to waste and Six Sigma brings to quality.

If you are creating an improvement storyboard, a Pareto chart, a fishbone diagram, a tree diagram, an activity network diagram, an affinity diagram or a behaviour-based safety checklist you need to know what a behaviour is (be able to accurately identify a specific behaviour without confusing it with characteristics, results, and fuzzy generalizations), determine what prompts the behaviour (like a ring prompts you to “reach for” your cell phone), and what encourages you to continue to behave that way (what reinforces the behaviour, as when you reach for the cell phone—open it up—and viola, there is someone on the other end to talk to.)

Does understanding what prompts a behaviour and what causes it to happen more than once explain all we need to know about people and organizations and management? No, but across the globe human performance is limited because leaders, managers, and supervisors do not understand the fundamentals of behavioural causation. They don’t know that much of the behaviour they see is not prompted by complex personality variables, but by immediate, situational factors that can be controlled to ensure that people behave in ways that support their best interests (safety being the most important)—the best interests of the product, their coworkers, and the customer.

If you have reached a personal “tipping point,” input overload, critical dysfunctional mass in trying to understand why people do the things they do, keep reading this blog. I can’t explain the meaning of life, but I can tell you why your teenager begs for money.