by Michael Holland
All employees desire feedback on their job performance. For the employee-leader relationship, dynamics and timing are important factors in determining how feedback will be received. Consistency of both positive and critical messages is crucial.
As you commute home during the week, make mental notes on some aspect of each of your employees’ performance during that day. Visualize an employee situation and make a mental movie of the impact of that action or behavior on others. During your morning commute, take a moment to replay those mental videos. Choose movies that deserve a review, noting that each employee should receive at least one review per week. Make a plan to give a 10-second movie review for the employee, giving critical insight into his or her performance. The review could be as simple as providing an employee a positive stroke for consistently doing a job as expected or as difficult as stepping through a performance improvement plan.
Employees want to know that their supervisors will be consistent in their approach. They want to be able to anticipate how a supervisor will react in a given circumstance. Your movie reviews will set the stage for providing that knowledge, both from their content and from your delivery.
So start rolling those mental cameras today!