The best leaders attract and retain the best people, and giving feedback is an essential part of this process. I realize this isn’t exactly a management epiphany– it’s not fire-from-the-mountain to realize that feedback matters, but the effect of directing it poorly might surprise you.
When time and attention are scarce, leaders often find themselves rationing their communication and spending it most on lagging performance or lesser perfomers. This is reasonable—feedback can redirect things and get people and projects back on track or up to speed. Unfortunately, this can exhaust your time and attention on the lesser perfomers and leave little left over for the top performers. In the short run this might not seem problematic—after all, the top performers seem to be doing just fine without your feedback—but in the long run, it could ruin you and your organization. Here’s why…
The best people, the most responsible ones, feel a sense of ownership for what they’re doing. Their performance matters to them so they want to know how they’re doing and they’re hungry for feedback. They take their work personally, and in the absence of feedback, this personal concern turns quickly into self-criticism or doubt and they begin to question their contributions and your regard. No News is always bad news for the best people, so a lack of feedback creates an uncomfortable or insecure experience that may cause them to look for a better one.
This is dangerous because it unleashes the power of natural selection in your organization. Look at it this way: Responsible people want feedback, slackers don’t, so if you’re miserly with feedback or direct it too exclusively to the less-responsible or unproductive areas, you create a habitat that’s most comfortable for slackers. You shouldn’t be surprised if the population shifts unproductively in response.
Its counter-intuitive, but if you focus on unproductive people, you’ll get more of them. If your feedback is reserved primarily for “problem” people and projects, the most responsible people with a sense of “ownership” will leave, and less-responsible people with a “hired hand” mentality will take their place.
Make sure you’re investing in the best bets, and offer feedback to the ones who want it.