Frequent Feedback at Work Supports a High Performance Culture

Frequent Feedback at Work Supports a High Performance Culture
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Frequent Feedback at Work Supports a High Performance Culture
We know from assessing organizational cultures that frequent feedback at work supports a high performance culture.  In fact, the Executive Board found that companies who rated in the top quartile for openness of communication delivered an average total shareholder return of almost four times greater over a 10-year period.  So your employees’ comfort in speaking their minds, even when they may have negative things to say, matters.

What is a High Performance Culture?
We define a high performance culture as one that gets the most out of your people and your business because it is healthy and aligned with your business strategy. Leading organizations set high expectations by ensuring that employees know where they stand and where they can improve.

What HIPO’s Want — Transparency
High potential and high performing employees are not afraid of the “Light.”  They want to know where they stand vis-à-vis their teammates and the defined standards of success. They want to know if they are doing a good job and where they can improve to perform at their peak.

Why Under Performers Like the “Shade”
And the reverse is also true — substandard employees are likely to resist performance exposure and feedback. They often don’t want negative news – even if it is constructive. Under performers typically do not believe frequent feedback supports a high performance culture.

Under performers typically like to hide in the “shade” created by ambiguity and often blame others for their substandard performance or poor cultural fit.

The Message to Leaders
For leaders, the message is clear — if you are working toward creating a high performing culture, you need to let your employees know frequently and constructively how their success is measured and how well they are fulfilling job expectations.  Let your teams know you believe frequent feedback at work supports a high performance culture.

Be Clear About How Success is Measured
When we speak to leaders and followers at our clients:

  • Too few understand how their success is currently being measured
  • Too many overestimate their performance contribution compared to how they are perceived by their boss and their peers

This means that too few managers are setting clear performance standards and providing constructive feedback in real-time. If only more managers understood how much easier it is to give feedback in small chunks, on-the-spot, rather than all at once in an annual review.

The Importance of Shining the “Light” of Transparency
Most employees like a culture of transparency so they know how they are doing — the good ones because they welcome the kudos, and those “B” players with the right attitude because they aspire to improve.  In our experience, a good portion of employees react positively to feedback given on a more regular basis by figuring out how they can fix whatever problem was pointed out. Isn’t that the basis for inspiring improved performance?

The Bottom Line
How can any employee deliver what you need or improve if they don’t understand what is expected of them and how they are doing? Managers need to spend the time upfront:

  • Defining exactly how success will be measured
  • Being clear about the outcomes and results that they expect
  • Clarifying behavioral expectations about how things should get done

If you believe clear expectations, frequent feedback, and an environment of trust sets the stage for a high performance, download How to Create a High Performance Culture now to learn more.

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