Sometimes team members make mistakes. When that happens, you must acknowledge those mistakes.
Talking up front about errors is key to preventing them from happening again, says Rosemary Smyth, founder of Rosemary Smyth and Associates in Victoria. Whether a team member gave incorrect information to a client or consistently comes in late, noting the mistake or behaviour gives you the opportunity to improve your team’s performance.
Here are the six steps to providing constructive criticism:
1. Don’t procrastinate
When mistakes occur, your goal should be to prevent a repeat occurrence. Be sure to recall the exact details of the problem to help you understand where the situation went wrong.
If you procrastinate, the facts will start to fade under the pressure of other tasks.
2. Discuss the issue at an appropriate time
While you shouldn’t wait too long, you also shouldn’t bulldoze your employee into this conversation.
Ask if it is a good time for your team member to have a private conversation. Your staff member will be more open to the idea, Smyth says, if he or she doesn’t feel as if an important task was interrupted.
3. Get to the root of the problem
Once you and your team member have agreed on an appropriate time to talk, break the situation down to see why the error occurred. Preventing a future occurrence requires everyone involved to understand how the error was possible.
For example, your sales assistant sent information about RESPs to Mrs. Jones. The problem is you have two clients named Jones and the information went to the wrong client.
Ask questions that will help you and your team member understand what went wrong. In this particular situation, did you make it clear which Mrs. Jones had requested the information? Was your team member unable to read your writing? Was he or she unsure about the request but didn’t want to admit it? Has this ever happened before?
4. Avoid anger
The feedback is not constructive if you are shouting, Smyth says.
Yelling will not help your team member understand the problem and he or she will be more focused on ending the discussion (or other employment options) than resolving the issue.
5. Let your team member develop a strategy
Ask your employee how he or she would like to remedy the situation for the future. This step helps the team member feel more in control of his or her role in your practice. In addition, it will be easier to hold this person accountable for the strategy because he or she helped produce it.
Also, ask what your role should be in helping improve the situation.
Remember that being on a team involves acknowledging that each member’s efforts can affect another’s performance.
6. Balance negative feedback with positive – at the right time
You want your team to feel supported. When they do something impressive, tell them.
But when they make a mistake, stick to the discussion of the error. Don’t use a compliment about other work to gloss over discussion of a problem, or you will be sending a mixed message. The compliment might distract from the need to find ways to improve the problem.