Upward Feedback or Complaint?
While complaints and upward feedback share the common thread of desiring change, they are markedly different ways of exerting influence with leaders above.
Team members who prefer to complain openly often express disappointment without any real solution in mind. They believe leaders are in the business of learning about what is bothering them and allowing them to vent about it. Mistakenly, they think this is an effective way of creating change.
It’s not.
By expressing their dissatisfaction through complaint, team members are asking the leader to own their problem or issue and to resolve it. For someone busy with plenty of other problems, this is a task and burden the leader never appreciates.
As a result, leaders often tune out the complainer, viewing them as self-serving, annoying, or bothersome. Even when they agree with the complaint and perhaps place it on their list of issues to address, they find the conversation distasteful. No one, especially a leader, enjoys engaging with a complainer.
In contrast, the same message can be offered as upward feedback. Complaints don’t offer or focus on solutions or suggested improvements. When they do, they become feedback.
Leaders prefer to engage with team members who have a ready-made solution for the problem they have identified or experienced. Leaders view problem and solution commentary as upward feedback that originates from an intention to help the leader and team improve. This changes everything.
Upward feedback is always given in the spirit of improvement. As such, the solution receives much more attention than the problem or dissatisfaction.
When leaders know the team member has spent the time to propose a possible solution for the problem, they react very differently to the message. Rather than seeing the issue as emanating from a selfish or self-serving place with a focus on personal disappointment, leaders view problems raised with suggestions or recommendations for improvement as feedback worth engaging collaboratively.
The distinction between a complaint and feedback is often missed by many team members because of their need for catharsis. Instead of exploring a critical question that captures their dissatisfaction or proposing a recommendation, they dive right into what is bothering them or how the current strategy or approach is wrong in their view.
By taking this path, they diminish their ability to influence the leader to course correct or to make desired changes. Catharsis may be effective in therapy sessions, but it is a losing strategy when it comes to carrying dissatisfaction to a leader.
Make it a rule never to offer a criticism upward without a solution or suggestion to go along with it. When leaders hear your commentary as constructive feedback and not complaint, they become more receptive to addressing the issue or problem. And they like you much better in the process!
Talented team members don’t complain. They refuse to act as victims. Instead, they prefer to engage collaboratively with their leader to fix ongoing problems. They remember that upward feedback always amplifies the solution, not the problem or the dissatisfaction. It’s really not hard to do. Unless your need to vent is more important than being effective.
An alternative to Feedback
I’ve always admonished my followers to present an alternative, or ten, whenever they present a complaint. I’m not complaining. Okay, maybe, but not to you or anyone in particular, mostly to, or about, our culture. So, here it goes, but I have a solution….
Feedback sucks! Yeah, I said it! And you’ve thought it. Even the word itself is demeaning. Think about it. Who do we feed? Those who can’t feed themselves. I can feed myself. I’m pretty sure you can, too. Don’t feed me. Especially, stupid thoughts or ideas that aren’t founded in truth. You know what I mean. And BACK! As in feed…back. I don’t want to go backward. I want to keep moving forward. Don’t you? Now, I’ll admit that looking at how you did things before and assessing how you can improve them now or in the future are valuable, but don’t dwell on the past. Learn from the it but keep striving forward. And I don’t know ANYONE who provides feedback appropriately. Most people, especially those who consider themselves leaders, but aren’t, are afraid to be honest with their followers. That’s why they wait so long to tell you what you did wrong and how you can make it right. You know I’m telling you the truth. Alous Huxley said that “we shall know the truth, and it shall make us mad.”
So, what’s my solution? I call it P.I.A. It stands for Personal (Professional) Improvement Advice. Before I break it down, let me give you an overall perspective. Isn’t the intent of what we call feedback really us giving or receiving Personal or Professional Improvement Advice?
I’m going to almost disagree with a teaching from one of my mentors, Don Miguel Ruiz. Don Miguel is the author of The Four Agreements, which, by the way, is a GREAT book. You should read it. His second agreement is Don’t Take Anything Personally. He’s referring to how we accept advice and feedback (ugly word). Not taking things personally is incredibly difficult for me, and maybe for some of you. Everything we do is personal. For years one of the most popular buzz words in our culture has been “ownership.” That’s personal. I almost appreciate the word, “ownership.” I do appreciate the meaning. The gist of the meaning, I believe, is that we take responsibility and accountability for what we do and how we do it. Owning who we are by what we do produces our identity. We all have one. Is it what we want it to be? If we take ownership of it, we can create the right identity. Effective Leaders are consistently striving to improve themselves and their followers, which is the second part of PIA.
Isn’t the intent of feedback to help someone improve? It should be. It isn’t always. I’ve seen too many instances of a person giving someone feedback just to make the receiver feel badly, or to demean them, thinking that it will make the giver superior. It never does that. There’s huge value in helping someone improve. But that takes some mastery of what it is that should be improved. And it also takes some assessment of the reason the person isn’t better to begin with. Most of all, it takes empathy to understand the circumstances of the behavior or action needing improvement. It takes work. Do the work and then you may provide advice. But you have to share it appropriately.
Key to providing or receiving advice so that it helps us improve is trust. Have you ever had someone you don’t trust give you advice? How effective was that? Probably, not very. One of the characteristics of trust is purpose. As I just noted, if your purpose for sharing advice is to make you look better, it won’t work. If it’s to help that follower better themselves, there’s a better chance it will work. Since you probably haven’t attended my Building Trust seminar, let me tell you that people know pretty quickly whether or not they can trust you. It may take time to build a truly trusting relationship, but the first impression is often accurate. When providing advice to someone, keep in mind that your experience is not their experience. How many times have you heard someone say, or maybe you’ve even said it, “Been there. Done that.” The truth is that you’ve NEVER been there nor done that exactly as they have. NEVER! The world is constantly changing. What you both experienced is not the same. Practice empathy, then share advice, if they want it.
I’m still fine-tuning my PIA concept. It’s always personal, even when it’s professional. We all seek to improve our lives in some way. Sincere advice intended to help someone empower themselves to develop their identity can be powerful. I’m convinced that the concept of Personal (Professional) Improvement Advice is a lot more effective than the F word.
Until next time, Be GREAT! You ARE!
¡HEIRPOWER!
bob vásquez!
Amen.
Years ago, that's what we were taught as department managers. Personally, I do not think we should vent to our superiors (regardless of what they say). They are usually not trained psychologists/licensed therapists. We have to outsource and be proactive in our own well-being.
Thank you for your time.