One of my neighbors was a virologist and was working through a difficult time! While most people were home due to the COVID-19 restrictions, this neighbor was working at the lab for almost 7 days a week and more than 12-15 hours a day! She was supporting the COVID-19 team in looking at a number of ways to come up with a cure! Occasionally, I even drove this person to the workplace and supported in other capacities like buying groceries, etc. With time, however, the exertion and fatigue rubbed on the neighbor and the neighbor was finding work-life balance difficult. There was even frustration of not being able to find the cure as fast as possible!
Now, I have written articles on feedback should be FACT driven (Rajagopalan, 2019) and the guidelines for giving and receiving feedback (Rajagopalan, 2020). When emotions were high and people were tirelessly working towards something as important and impactful as this COVID-19 cure, I found it myself difficult to motivate the neighbor. I wanted to appreciate my neighbor not to get frustrated at failure as failure is not final but was also finding difficulty in the right word choices.
The following captures some of my thoughts for anyone who may be in the same predicament. Please keep in mind that these are just guidelines. However, we must remember to discuss the impact of the things we notice and the focus on behaviors we would like the individual or team to emulate. Subsequently, we should summarize the discussion to converge on working agreements for continuous improvement. I used this approach with my neighbor compliment the contributions at a significant event in history and that connecting with the emotions expressing frustration is fine. I found that it gave me a framework for giving feedback (of course after patiently engaging in active listening).
| Phrase | Individual | Team |
| I liked | List 1-2 the positive result of the behavior | List 1-2 impacts on the overarching team objectives |
| I didn't like | List what was unacceptable and discuss on the impact and lack of personal influence | Discuss the impact of how the behavior contributes to an adverse team environment |
| Do more of | Appreciate the behavior and discuss its positive contribution | Discuss the impact of positive leadership and how we could promote such behaviors with all team members |
| Do less of | Discuss how the behavior is not productive and contributes to waste (muda), unevenness (mura) and overburden (muri) | Discuss unproductive contribution and how we can brainstorm ideas for addressing waste, unevenness, and overburden |
Do you think this framework is good? Would you see something added, removed, or modified? Please share your thoughts.
References
Rajagopalan, S. (2019). Feedback should be FACT driven. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2019/03/feedback-should-be-fact-driven.html
Rajagopalan, S. (2020, May). Giving and Receiving Feedback. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2020/05/giving-and-receiving-feedback.html
