Page 35 - An Indispensible Resource for Being a Credible Activist

❱❱ FEEDBACK DELIVERY

Having a feedback delivery policy and training for a workplace that is not used to these
concepts is necessary. The HR Tools entitled “Sample Feedback Delivery Policy for the
Management Team” and the “Sample Feedback Guidelines,” on pages 23–24, are two help-
ful samples that you can easily customize for your workplace. Be sure to have an hour-long
training session with groups of approximately 20 people to roll out this initiative. Of course,
any initiative is most successful with leadership demonstrating full support to all staff and
visibly participating. Feel free to customize and change these to suit your workplace culture
as needed.

❱❱ THE IMPORTANCE OF CRITICAL THINKING ABILITIES, LOGIC,
AND BEING A “REASONABLE PERSON”
As an HR/OD professional, you must be able to think critically, compare options rationally,
and be a “reasonable person.” At this point, you probably know that in the legal world there
is the “Reasonable Person Standard.” One source defines a reasonable person as an

Ordinary, prudent person who normally exercises due care while avoiding extremes of
both audacity and caution. Used as a test of liability in cases of negligence, this standard
is not applied uniformly on all persons because varying degrees of reasonableness may
be expected from a minor (infant), an adult, an unskilled person, or a professional such
as a doctor. 5

Another source defines “reasonable person standard” as

A phrase frequently used in TORT and Criminal Law to denote a hypothetical person in
society who exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct and who serves as a
comparative standard for determining liability. The decision whether an accused is
guilty of a given offense might involve the application of an objective test in which the
conduct of the accused is compared to that of a reasonable person under similar
circumstances. In most cases, persons with greater than average skills, or with special
duties to society, are held to a higher standard of care. For example, a physician who
aids a person in distress is held to a higher standard of care than is an ordinary person. 6

The point is, you as an HR/OD professional must be reasonable, logical, and able to
think rationally and critically. The last HR Tool in this chapter, entitled “Sample Critical
Thinking Quiz for HR/OD Professionals,” on pages 24–26, is a short but important test for
you to take right now in order to help you assess your own “reasonableness.”

18 The H R Toolkit