Room for Improvement: Making Negative Feedback A Positive

  PM Network  

Most of us have little difficulty delivering praise for a job well done. Administering a dressing-down is an entirely different matter, though. It’s just not a pleasant experience. Yet sidestepping negative feedback is only going to cause more problems as team members take the lack of reprisal as implicit approval.

Instead, try to tackle issues as they happen.

“Timing is critical,” says Didier Brackx, PMP, senior project manager at USG People International, an employment resourcing agency in Ghent, Belgium. “Don’t give feedback two or three months after the event. Do it at the time. Choose your moment, certainly, but do it when memories are fresh and the facts undisputed.”

Timing can also determine how the comments are received.

“Give feedback too late, and it runs the risk of being perceived as reactive—given as a response when things go bad, rather than as a coaching moment,” says Scott Spreier, a Boston, Massachusetts, USA-based senior consultant at advisory firm Hay Group’s McClelland Center for Innovation and Research.

Look before you leap

No matter how incorrigible the behavior, project managers should be aware of the risks in jumping to conclusions. Take the time to drill down to the root causes of why team members might be under-performing. Before antagonizing them with a barrage of …

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