Appello Partners’ Post

An essential job of every leader is being able to give clear and effective feedback to our people. The urgency for this feedback is heightened whenever results aren’t what we had hoped for or expected from those we lead. Yet the way we give that feedback plays a major role in how it is received by the person on the other side of us. Calling Up, Not Out is a tool that helps us reframe that feedback in a way that helps the other person feel like we are for them and not against them. For instance: say, one of your direct reports was supposed to email a customer about an issue, and a week later they still haven’t sent it out and the customer reached out to you asking for clarity. The most common response would be: “Why didn’t you send that email out like you were supposed to?” This makes the other person feel like it is you vs. them and will often lead to them shutting down and operating out of fear. In order to lead through influence we must go into those conversations with the posture and mindset of “fighting for the highest good of the other.” When we do this, we engage the conversation from a place of support and camaraderie, even if the content is difficult to receive. This might resemble something like: “Hey, I wanted to check in on the email that was supposed to go out to client x. I know you were really trying to support our customers well and had some goals to do that, and this doesn’t match up with those goals, just wanted to understand what happened and see what we can learn from it.” The next time you’re needing to give some difficult feedback, recall this tool and choose to call up instead of calling out. #leadership #communication #AppelloPartners

  • graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

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