On Monday we talked about emotional IQ as a key element in how you manage your people and impact performance. Emotional IQ has to do with your self-awareness and emotional management to be effective with others; and how you as a boss, manage performance and promote growth considering the emotional needs and aspects of your staff.

Here are 3 key’s to know and 8 things to do to encourage and recognize employees, and to deliver necessary and “receivable” feedback to help them learn and improve, as both are critical for performance growth.

1. KNOW: Recognition (appropriate praise, appreciation and acknowledgement) is a driver in employee satisfaction and retention. Miss this and you may see your talent hit the streets.
2. KNOW: Constructive feedback – only – can literally create underperformance in employees due to decreased morale and trust or learned helplessness.
3. KNOW: That delivering constructive yet “receivable” feedback is difficult for most people to give, and it’s highly unlikely that it will be delivered well when you are upset. (Do not give critical feedback when you are “out of your effective zone”. )

1. DO: Work to balance positive and constructive feedback – both are developmental feeders. That means, ensure you are giving appropriate positive feedback in addition to what didn’t work and needs to improve.
2. DO: Regularly give feedback, both positive and constructive – not just once a year with a formal performance evaluation. (Meaning, there should be no surprises to the employee at their performance review.)
3. DO: Be very aware of your choice of language and tone in delivering feedback.
4. DO: Use feedback as an opportunity to build a relationship and trust. Help the employee understand performance concerns by talking with them, recognizing the problem, understanding company policy and establishing next steps for course correction.
5. DO: Set performance goals that are of interest to your employee – not just you. Higher motivation is inherent when an employee takes ownership of his/her goals.
6. DO: Use empathy and manners to convey concern and respect, i.e., “I Understand …I can appreciate… I respectfully disagree and here’s why…
7. Do: Ask questions to encourage self-reflection/assessment to begin an improvement conversation. For example, try questions like:
   a. How do you think you are doing (in respect to this project)?
   b. How do you see yourself getting along with others?
   c. What did you learn? What do you believe could go better next time? And,
   what would/will you do to make this happen?
8. Do: Offer help (as appropriate): By asking how you can assist and by establishing agreement for a follow-up.

How you recognize employees, how you encourage them and how well you do at making them feel valued and appreciated, in addition to how effective you are at delivering constructive feedback, will cause their motivation meter to either go up or down.

Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2011 at 4:37 am and is filed under Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.