The Art of giving FEEDBACK (PART ONE)
Mayur Kalbag is a Leadership Coach, Corporate Trainer & Author who regulalry does corporate training in Fiji. This will be his regular column in our Jobs section on Saturdays providing readers some useful tips. He can be contacted via email: mayurkalbag@hotmail. com
Pravitosh finished delivering his presentation to the five new customers. He had taken a lot of painful efforts in preparing for it. Despite the good response from the customers Pravitosh was not feeling happy about the way in which he had delivered the presentation. “I could have done it far better” he thought to himself. Interestingly, along with the customers Pravitosh’s manager was also present.
The presentation was over and there was a coffee and tea break. As the customers were busy discussing something among themselves Pravitosh’s manager walked up to him and he was looking upset. “Hey Pravitosh, what were you doing in there? You were making so many mistakes while delivering the presentation. Did you not prepare properly for it? I could barely understand what you were saying to us. It was very poorly made presentation and I am completely unimpressed” Such words from his manager made him feel very demotivated. Interestingly, after the coffee and tea break Pravitosh had to make a concluding speech to the five customers and then had to visit another customer as well. During the concluding speech Pravitosh was more nervous than before and fearful as well, but somehow completed the speech and left quickly to meet his other customer.
Unfortunately, through the entire journey from his office to the customer, Pravitosh was feeling low, de-motivated and very demoralized. Such was the negative impact of his manager’s feedback that his interaction with the customer was without any passion. From all this, a few questions we need to ask. Was Pravitosh’s presentation really that poor and unimpressive? Could be! Did he make a lot of mistakes during his presentation? May be, he did! But, was the manager right in the way he shared his feedback with Pravitosh? The answer to that is a big NO. The rude and upsetting tone along with hurtful words of the manager made it worse for Pravitosh as he was already feeling unhappy with himself. Giving a feedback to someone about his or her performance is the right thing to do, but then, the way and manner it needs to be given is of utmost importance. We will look at the ways in which we can and must offer a feedback in our next column!