Welcome to the Momentum Business Coaching Newsletter for
December 2006

Survival of the Fittest:
Feedback is not for Sissies

"It is not the most intelligent of the species that survive the longest, it is the most adaptable." -- Charles Darwin

In order to be persistently successful, people and organisations need to adapt continually to their environment. This requires information from the environment. The more active and open the feedback, the more effective the adaptation and change. Few leaders have truly open and honest feedback within their organisations.

CEO disease: not seeing the impact a leader's mood has on the organisation.

Symptom: when the leader has near-total ignorance about how his or her mood and actions appear to the organisation.

The term "CEO disease" was originally coined in an article in Business Week by John Byrne in 1991. It is discussed in Primal Leadership: Realising the Power of Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press 2002).

The higher up in an organisation a leader goes, the less accurate his self-assessment is likely to be. The problem is a lack of candid feedback.

As one CEO expressed it, "I can't put my finger on it, because no one is actually lying to me. But I can sense that people are hiding information, or camouflaging key facts - they aren't telling me everything I need to know."

Sometimes people don't share information due to fear of the leader's commanding or pacesetting style. They do not want to be shot as the messenger. Often people want to appear upbeat and optimistic and avoid delivering negative information. Whatever the motives, the result is a leader who has only partial information about what's going on.

There is a natural instinct to please the boss, resulting in a widespread tendency to give positive feedback whenever information flows upward.

Lack of Reliable Feedback at the Top

The problem is compounded when the leader is a woman or from a minority group. Women in general get less useful feedback about their performance in any position than do men. Similar studies show this to be true for Chinese and Indian executives as well.

Executives are often unaware of this dynamic. Many believe they are attuned to their environment because they ask questions and solicit feedback. They think they are getting the truth, but people have difficulty delivering the complete truth when the message is not favourable.

Top executives typically get the least reliable information about how they are doing. A meta-analysis of 177 separate studies that assessed 28,000 managers found that performance feedback becomes more inconsistent the higher the person's position.

Often it is simply because it makes people uncomfortable to be candid. It is difficult to be frank without risking injury or backlash. Few people want to intentionally hurt another person's feelings, and they certainly don't want to be misinterpreted or accused of trying to do harm. Often silence is chosen rather than risk.

When people avoid giving honest feedback by sanitszing it to keep up comfort levels, they are doing a disservice. They are depriving their own leaders of valuable information.

Seeking Out Negative Feedback

Emotionally intelligent leaders will actively seek out negative feedback as well as positive. They understand they need a full range of information to perform better, whether it makes them comfortable or not.

How should leaders seek out the truth? It is clear that it is up to them if they are to have the information they need to make changes and to adapt to the environment. Rare are those people who will dare tell a strong leader he or she is coming across as too commanding or harsh. People generally won't stand up and let a leader know he could be more visionary or more democratic.

A study of 400 executives shows that the most effective leaders actively seek negative feedback. They let it be known that they are open to receive critiques either of their ideas or their leadership. The least successful executives most often solicit confirming feedback.

Using 360-Degree Assessments

The 360-degree assessment method offers a fuller picture for anyone wanting to develop a plan for improvement. Asking input of many people, subordinates, colleagues, superiors, peers and even family members can offer multiple perspectives. This multiple perspective is designed to give a fuller picture of the "real" person. How accurate this is depends on 1) whether the respondents interact regularly with the person and 2) whether the person reveals himself to others.

Since a person can be different with each person, it is important that many respondents be involved. An overall consensus needs to be derived. Interestingly, one study shows that subordinates and peers are more predictive of a leader's success than the boss is. In this study, how subordinates assessed their leader proved most predictive of the leader's effectiveness both two and four years following the assessment. Even after seven years, the subordinates' assessments predicted the leader's success with far more accuracy than those of the boss.

Feedback That Works

An effective model of delivering feedback is set forth in, Feedback that Works by Sloan Weitzel, (Center for Creative Leadership, 2000). There is a three-step process in delivering effective feedback:

1. Capture the situation: You must be specific as to what happened, when it happened and the context. The more specific, the better. Refrain from judgmental statements. Be neutral, avoiding words that might trigger defensiveness. The idea here is to recall the event.

2. Describe the behaviour: You must give information about what specific behavior or situation that needs to change. Avoid using adjectives that describe the person; use words that describe the person's actions.

3. Describe the impact: In the final step, focus on the impact of the behavior. When you interpret and make a judgment about the behavior, you are less effective because the person can become defensive and argue with your interpretation. Share your personal point of view and ask the other person to view their behavior from your perspective.

Feedback needs to be clear, specific, candid and concise. It should not be judgmental (good/bad), blaming (fault/scapegoating), or come from right/wrong thinking. If delivered in any of these modes, it will trigger either active or passive defensiveness.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Resources Survival of the Fittest -- Feedback is Not for Sissies

Allport, Gordon, P. E.Vernon,., and Gardner Lindzey. Study of Values. Houghton Mifflin, 1960.

Argyris, Chris, and Don Schon. Theory in Practice Learning. Jossey-Bass, 1982.

Ashford, Susan J., and Anne S. Tsui. "Self-Regulation for Managerial Effectiveness: The Role of Active Feedback Seeking." Academy of Management Journal, 34, no. 2: 251-280, 1991.

Boyatzis, Richard, and David Kolb.Feedback and Self-Directed Behavior Change. Sloan School of Management, 1969.

Byrne, John. "CEO Disease," Business Week, 1 April 1991, 52-59.

Conway, James and Allen Huffcutt, Allen. "Psychometric Properties of Multi-Source Performance Ratings: A Meta-analysis of Subordinate, Supervisor, Peer and Self-Ratings." Human Performance, 10, no. 4 (1977): 331-360.

Goleman, Daniel. Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception. Simon and Schuster, 1985.

Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee Primal Leadership. Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

McEvoy, Glenn M. and Richard Beatty. "Assessment Centers and Subordinate Appraisals of Managers: A Seven Year Examination of Predictive Validity." Personnel Psychology, 42: 37-52, 1989.

Seligman, Martin. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Alfred Knopf, 1991.

Stuart, Peggy. "What Does the Glass Ceiling Cost You?" Personnel Journal, 71, no. 11 (1991): 70-80.

Weitzel, Sloan. Feedback that Works. Center for Creative Leadership, 2000.