The Difficulties Of Providing Constructive Feedback

Problem

Giving constructive feedback is always difficult, but having this kind of conversation with an employee who is also a personal friend makes it even more difficult. In my second or third year of leading people, I had an employee who had been my lead engineer at a different company. He had recruited me to this new opportunity and after two or three years, had ended up reporting to me. He had been promoted the year before to a higher-level engineering role, but when we looked at his work we identified that he had some weaknesses he needed to work on. He was struggling to deliver on time, have productive conversations with his team, and to effectively estimate for work to be done.

"Giving constructive feedback is always difficult, but having this kind of conversation with an employee who is also a personal friend makes it even more difficult."

Actions taken

This individual wanted to move back into an application role, so I gave him the opportunity to work with a really fast-moving project I was running. However, we ran into the same issues we had seen in the past. He missed deliverables, and he always blamed other constraints or other team members for missing them. After he missed his first deadline, I had a quick checkpoint with him to determine whether there was something professional or personal going on that he was struggling with, so I could help him overcome any barriers he had. I made it clear I was supporting him and told him I wanted to help him be successful. I then decided to put him on an individual project so he would have to work by himself. While putting him on an individual project wouldn't solve his issue with working constructively with others, I thought it would help me to determine whether he was able to deliver or not. However, again, I saw the same results. I then changed the model a little so that we were having weekly checkpoints. Every week we would have a one-on-one to track how he was progressing. We did this for about a month and everything worked well. However, four weeks later the pattern had reemerged again. I had another frank conversation with him and let him know about the impacts of him not delivering, and discussed the big-picture impacts such as the company losing faith in our team. Once again, there was an improvement in his behavior before he went back to normal. I got to the point where I realized I needed to put him on a Performance Improvement Plan. I told him that I was going to put him on a plan, and gave him the weekend to think about it. We met again on Tuesday to discuss what the plan would look like and he told me he was going to resign. You have to be very transparent about your expectations when you take on new members in a team, regardless of how you've operated with them in the past. Make sure you're aligned with that person so you can drive the behaviors you want to see.

"After he missed his first deadline, I had a quick checkpoint with him to determine whether there was something professional or personal going on that he was struggling with, so I could help him overcome any barriers he had. I made it clear I was supporting him and told him I wanted to help him be successful."

"I got to the point where I realized I needed to put him on a Performance Improvement Plan. I told him that I was going to put him on a plan, and gave him the weekend to think about it. We met again on Tuesday to discuss what the plan would look like and he told me he was going to resign."

Lessons learned

People tend to have peaks and valleys in terms of how they operate. The onus falls on managers, as leaders, to help manage this in an effective way. While in this story I used a monthly checkpoint, a better approach is to have consistent checkpoints until you see the results you are looking for. Build in enough checks and balances to ensure you will continuously get the quality you want, and to make sure the other person is invested in improving. Now, when I see people struggling in a role, I don't automatically jump to a performance improvement plan. Instead, I will have a conversation with them about what the plan is and what it entails and make sure they understand what it's supposed to do - it is there to help them, but also to help the company. If they can't deliver, then they need to be aware that action such as termination could occur. Give that person time to ponder whether they want to go on the plan. From an organization's standpoint, managing people out is time-consuming and difficult for both the individual and the manager. If a person leaves on their own, this usually results in a more positive result for everyone.