The scene of the crime
You’ve just experienced conflict at work. Someone you supervise has done or said something that isn’t appropriate or up to snuff and it’s your job to talk with them to share your thoughts, find out what’s happening for them and to make requests about behavior change. You are clear in your thoughts and you are about to ask them for a few minutes to talk about it.
But then you sense that this “isn’t the right moment” to talk with them. You make a mental note to talk with them “soon” when the time is “right” and then you go about your day. Sound familiar?
What happened here? You know it’s your responsibility to help others learn and grow and also to create a healthy culture on your team. And yet something in your mindset pulled back the reins and determined that this isn’t the right time to share feedback directly.
There is no right time
The question is: “What is the right time?” Let’s look at the notion of a right time a bit. We’ve been told that “timing is everything”, and gosh darn it we’re going to find this magical right time! Perhaps the right time is when both you and the other person are completely devoid of stress? Or it’s when you don’t have a deadline or some important task? Or maybe when you are both in a really good mood?
Hogwash!
First, how often do these kinds of “right” times happen in the course of a day/week/month? And what if you combine several of these factors to be the “right” time? Now how frequently would you have the perfect time to talk? The truth is that waiting for the right time will likely lead to you never share your feedback.
The right time is now
You may have heard the saying: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” I’d suggest here for our purposes we alter this to: “The best time to share challenging feedback was 20 minutes ago. The second-best time is now.” As you begin to understand that the elusive right time is unlikely to come along, it becomes clear that challenging feedback is best given as soon as possible after something has occurred.
The teachable moment is when the feedback is most relevant. Additionally, there is less time for stress to erode the relationship. Carrying feedback around with you can feel like it’s getting heavier each time you see the person you should be talking with, but aren’t. The right time for removing that stress is now. The right time for helping your team learn and grow is also now.
Learning opportunities
If each challenging conversation is an opportunity for you, your team and your organization to learn and grow, then clearly the more frequently you have them the more you and your team learn.
Said differently, how quickly do you want your team to learn? As a leader you are in a unique position to see opportunities for growth and to build alignment with goals in a supportive team culture. If you don’t do that consistently, who will? What is getting in the way of learning for you?
For many of us what holds us back is that we’re concerned we’ll look “like a jerk”. Or we worry that we won’t have the “right words” and we’ll hurt someone’s feelings and potentially lose their trust. Who would you trust more: The person who told you in a timely, professional way that you needed to shift your behavior, or the one who never told you – but who thought about it all the time?
And if it was you that had done something out of line and your supervisor witnessed it, when would the right time be for them to tell you? Would you prefer they wait until the opportunity fizzled out completely or was so long in the past that it was ineffective feedback? Likely you’d want their feedback immediately to allow you to do your best work. Now is your chance to show that team member the same level of respect.
What’s something you need to say today to someone on your team in the name of learning and growth?
