Page 153 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

124 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

and probably helped your cause if you had turned the numbers
into a bar chart and graphed the data over the past few quar-
ters to put things in perspective.” Such an approach will come
across as supportive and helpful and may well lead to a longer
conversation and deeper coaching opportunity. As you get more
comfortable and skilled, you can choose larger, more significant
issues about which to give feedback.
On average, 75 to 85 percent of your feedback should be positive
and oriented toward reinforcing behavior, while 15 to 25 percent
should be concerned with improving performance. My sugges-
tion is that you never mix feedback. Some supervisors like to do
the “feedback sandwich,” that is, one slice positive feedback, one
slice corrective feedback, and then one final slice positive feed-
back. The rationale is that the employee will be more receptive
to corrective feedback after hearing a compliment and will leave
on a positive note after receiving the second bit of good feedback.
There are two significant problems with this approach. First, the
corrective feedback is diluted by the adjacent positive feedback
and often lost entirely—the employee remembers only the posi-
tive. Second, if the feedback sandwich is your modus operandi
for delivering critical feedback, the positive feedback will come
across as insincere. As soon as you start praising the employee,
he or she will think, “OK, just get to the issue you’re upset about.”
If the purpose of the feedback is to reinforce good behavior, keep
it positive. If the purpose is to address a performance problem,
keep it corrective. Your feedback will come across as more sincere
and will be more effective in both situations.
Whatever your current skill level in delivering feedback,
know there is always room for improvement. As you read over
the examples that follow, highlight those that would lead most
quickly to an increase in your effectiveness.