when there’s any gray area about whether or not they’re meeting a standard, as is often the case for creative/knowledge workers, and your goal is to make them perform to their potential, then the forward-facing frame seems like a better technique rather than giving them a kind of negative assessment that they’re not expecting.
This seems like a plausible heuristic, as long as you’re ok with your suggestions not being taken. Especially if you’re a value driven company, and you’ve given lots of examples about following the company values, you should be able to clearly show how any given behavior that’s hurting the company is counter to its’ values. In my case, the heuristic I use isn’t about if standards have been set before hand, but about how “optional” the change is.
For instance if Fred hears:
I think you have some room for improvement in the way you present ideas at our staff meetings. Sometimes I notice that you’re making a valid point, which is a great contribution, but it doesn’t get fully appreciated by the rest of the team. I want to share some techniques with you that I’ve seen our senior staff use to be perceived well in meetings.”
Now it’s about Fred. Fred gets to decide if he has any problems not feeling fully appreciated. Then he gets to weigh that against whatever he’s getting from talking a lot (feeling important, never having to hold back anything etc), and even if it comes out on top, he then has to try to actually do an intervention to change the behavior, which is a MASSIVE amount of work, and probably won’t come out on top if the only benefit is getting to make less points in the meeting that are heard slightly more.
However if I say to Fred:
Fred, we’ve gotten some complaints that you’re talking too much at meetings and its’ disrupting the flow of the meeting.
For example, today when you brought up how our flux capacitors don’t last long enough. I imagine you were probably feeling frustrated that the issue hadn’t been dealt with, and needed to voice it somewhere.
And, the issue with our flux capacitors had nothing to do with the meeting issue of our quarterly revenue, and caused us to go 15 minutes over and miss significant time.
I want you to know that I find you a valuable employee, and think we can work through this issue together. I’d love you to take the next few days to think about a plan for addressing this behavior, then we’ll get together Thursday and put one together. I have several other examples written down here if you’d like a better understanding of the behavior.
In this scenario, it’s not about Fred, it’s about the company. I’m not telling Fred he has an “opportunity”, there’s no calculus he can do, and there’s no option of not doing it. There’s no weird moment where I’m telling Fred something is for his benefit that’s clearly not worth the cost/benefit analysis, and Fred is much more likely to change.
Ya this is a good example of how to communicate to Fred without a forward-facing frame.
This probably makes Fred think “I’m doing something wrong in meetings and I better fall in line”, i.e. go from “bad” to “acceptable”.
The forward-facing frame is for when you’d rather have Fred’s mental model be to take the next step in the path toward “very good”. Once you’ve established that forward-to-backward spectrum, it’s then ok to also emphasize how his current position is bad.
I wouldn’t start the feedback by saying there have been complaints about Fred. I’d only say that part after establishing a forward-facing frame, or not at all.
And to build on my heuristic from the previous comment: if Fred’s whole job is a very structured one where “acceptable” and “very good” are basically the same state, that’s when the forward-facing frame is least needed.
Ok, in that case I think we have slightly different models here. I think the forward facing frame first is useful again only if I’m ok with the change not happening.
Definitely a hard lesson for me as I’m very growth oriented and hate making people feel bad. My default is to go towards the forward facing/ growth opportunity frame but after experimenting with results of the research found it to be less effective.
This seems like a plausible heuristic, as long as you’re ok with your suggestions not being taken. Especially if you’re a value driven company, and you’ve given lots of examples about following the company values, you should be able to clearly show how any given behavior that’s hurting the company is counter to its’ values. In my case, the heuristic I use isn’t about if standards have been set before hand, but about how “optional” the change is.
For instance if Fred hears:
Now it’s about Fred. Fred gets to decide if he has any problems not feeling fully appreciated. Then he gets to weigh that against whatever he’s getting from talking a lot (feeling important, never having to hold back anything etc), and even if it comes out on top, he then has to try to actually do an intervention to change the behavior, which is a MASSIVE amount of work, and probably won’t come out on top if the only benefit is getting to make less points in the meeting that are heard slightly more.
However if I say to Fred:
In this scenario, it’s not about Fred, it’s about the company. I’m not telling Fred he has an “opportunity”, there’s no calculus he can do, and there’s no option of not doing it. There’s no weird moment where I’m telling Fred something is for his benefit that’s clearly not worth the cost/benefit analysis, and Fred is much more likely to change.
Ya this is a good example of how to communicate to Fred without a forward-facing frame.
This probably makes Fred think “I’m doing something wrong in meetings and I better fall in line”, i.e. go from “bad” to “acceptable”.
The forward-facing frame is for when you’d rather have Fred’s mental model be to take the next step in the path toward “very good”. Once you’ve established that forward-to-backward spectrum, it’s then ok to also emphasize how his current position is bad.
I wouldn’t start the feedback by saying there have been complaints about Fred. I’d only say that part after establishing a forward-facing frame, or not at all.
And to build on my heuristic from the previous comment: if Fred’s whole job is a very structured one where “acceptable” and “very good” are basically the same state, that’s when the forward-facing frame is least needed.
Ok, in that case I think we have slightly different models here. I think the forward facing frame first is useful again only if I’m ok with the change not happening.
Definitely a hard lesson for me as I’m very growth oriented and hate making people feel bad. My default is to go towards the forward facing/ growth opportunity frame but after experimenting with results of the research found it to be less effective.