In the current era of perpetual crisis and disruption, organizations must stay competitive so their leaders are able to navigate change and execute new strategies. At the same time, employees are eager to find meaning in their work and advance in their careers. Organizations with cultures that support growth and learning are the ones best positioned to be agile and innovative, with high levels of employee engagement and retention.

So how can your organization create a culture that puts learning at the forefront — in a way that’s practical, behavioral, and scalable? It starts with planting seeds for a learning culture to thrive.

What Is a Learning Culture?

A learning culture is an environment that demonstrates and encourages learning at both the individual and organizational levels, where sharing and gaining knowledge is prioritized, valued, and rewarded. A learning culture happens when learning becomes part of the ecosystem of the organization.

While it’s no small feat, there are 4 important components that can help transform your organization’s current culture into a learning culture.

4 Steps to Cultivate a Learning Culture at Your Organization

1. Attract and develop agile learners.

If you’re looking to upskill your workforce or perhaps reskill yourself, learning agility is one of the most critical skillsets to develop. Our research has long shown that the most successful leaders with the longest careers have the key leadership trait of learning agility.

Learning-agile leaders exemplify a growth mindset by learning from experience, challenging perspectives, remaining curious, and seeking new experiences. (This is why research suggests that great leaders are great learners.)

Because employees with learning agility continue to grow their skills and capabilities regardless of their current job, these individuals are in demand in the quest for talent. The workplace of yesterday no longer exists, and organizations need agile learners who understand how to transfer their current skillset to solve new problems and build capabilities for tomorrow.

• When hiring new talent: Seek out team members who learn from experience and challenge perspectives. Look for the critical skill of learning agility by asking interviewees how they’ve approached difficult situations in the past, how they’ve learned from mistakes, and how they prepare themselves for new challenges. Inquire about how they’ve applied their learnings to their next opportunity.
• For your current team members: Encourage people to remain curious and open. Provide ample opportunities for on-the-job learning and stretch assignments, along with support in the form of tools, mentoring, and coaching. Provide access to development opportunities for employees across your organization — don’t just limit skill-building to a small subset deemed “high potentials.”

Building a learning culture that democratizes leadership development and values a growth mindset will help you attract and retain a workforce that truly wants to learn, and help others learn as well.

2. Create a psychologically safe environment.

Looking at the teams and groups in your organization, are you fostering the trust and collaboration needed to sustain a strong learning culture? By creating safe spaces to be open and take interpersonal risks, you can build a foundation of psychological safety at work and encourage the learning that contributes to innovation and productivity.

Psychological safety is about promoting risk-taking and candor in a group, to create a secure environment for optimal learning. It’s the belief that candor is welcome, that employees can ask questions often and early, and that people can freely admit mistakes without fear of retribution.

Encourage team members (especially senior leaders) to admit mistakes openly and share stories of “failing forward.” Also, make sure executives know how to encourage innovation, not unintentionally sabotage and undermine it.

Ensuring leaders can create psychological safety for their teams allows team members to learn collectively and leads to a strong learning culture in your organization, where groups are willing to find lessons in setbacks and hardships, listen to one another, and invite differing opinions and candid conversations.

Remember, it’s not about being polite, but rather about being open. The openness to take interpersonal risks and glean lessons from mistakes to achieve something greater signifies a culture where growth is valued, which leads to a stronger organization that puts learning in the forefront.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Promote risk-taking and transparency within your organization.
• Encourage team members to ask questions often and early.
• Welcome candor and encourage employees, as well as the senior leadership team, to admit mistakes and share lessons learned, without fear of consequence.

3. Encourage conversations and feedback throughout the organization.

When determining how to cultivate learning culture, remember that effective communication and feedback should be woven throughout the organization and be encouraged and expected as a part of the norm. When feedback becomes a part of regular conversations, employees are aware of their personal developmental areas, resulting in continuous gains and fewer surprises at end-of-year reviews.

Giving feedback routinely and well often dramatically improves your talent development — but requires a particular skillset, which can fortunately be developed.

Encourage employees to give, and seek, both positive and developmental feedback. Positive feedback can help them leverage what’s working well already, and developmental feedback allows them to see what can be improved upon or done differently to have greater impact.

Because a conversation, by definition, involves 2 or more people, the collective communication competency of an organization is greatly enhanced when all employees are knowledgeable and skilled at holding high-quality conversations. Put simply, better culture starts with better conversations.

And that’s why our clients who have partnered with us to scale our conversational skills training program across their organizations have seen such positive results: When a critical mass of people shares a common understanding around what constitutes an effective conversation, it allows new skills to be applied to everyday work, and to spread organically through the organization. Widely applied, improved conversational skills benefit the organization by creating more robust, innovative, stress-tested solutions and a more dynamic and psychologically safe, learning culture.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Improve conversational skills across your entire organization with scalable training to build a common leadership language.
• Participate in meaningful conversations and provide valuable, actionable, and constructive feedback.
• Encourage everyone in your organization to truly listen to one another and seek feedback.

4. Make learning an explicit organizational priority.

If you want to show that learning is a real priority within your organization, send clear signals to your workforce that you’re all in.

Examine your policies, rewards systems, and opportunities to establish and reinforce a learning culture. Consider making these types of scheduled events a common practice at your organization:

• Lunch-and-learns, where senior leaders are storytellers who share their experiences and what they’ve learned recently and throughout their career journeys.
• After-action reviews, where teams regularly take a few minutes to share what they learned from a project or experience.
• Learning communities, where individuals can share what they’ve learned with similarly situated peers, and they can discuss together how they’re applying these learnings in their everyday work.
• Designated development days, where team- or company-wide sharing of lessons learned is expected and honored.

To show that your organization believes that learning is for everyone, make development opportunities inclusive and accessible across the entire organization. The practice of scaling learning will be unique for every organization, but be sure to provide an array of opportunities for “soft skill development” in a wide array of delivery formats to meet learner needs and abilities, including options that are asynchronous, in-person, self-paced, and virtual. (We’ve found that there are many unexpected benefits of using online learning for leadership development.)

Also, to ensure that you’re building a true learning culture, provide organizational support for learning not only in the form of tools and resources, but also by providing the necessary time and space for growth. Encourage leaders to allocate time for themselves and to set aside time for their teams to absorb and practice new skills.

When every employee sees that the organization values both individual and collective growth, you’ll strengthen your learning culture and gain commitment from your team members.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Create a strong learning culture by naming it as an explicit organizational priority.
• Examine company policies, rewards systems, and career development opportunities — what’s missing and what can be improved?
• Make it a common practice to share insights with others by hosting events such as lunch-and-learns, after-action reviews, and designated development days.

Build a Learning Culture That’s Tailored to Your Organization

To tailor your learning strategy to your organization, make sure to align your business strategy and leadership development opportunities, as well as your organization’s broader values, language, and brand. Examine the capabilities needed both today and into the future, and ask employees what type of development would be most valuable for them, as well as how they prefer to learn.

It’s important to acknowledge that not everyone is in a place to jump in right away. Keep in mind that behavior change is difficult. Meet people where they are, encouraging small steps, risk-taking, and sharing through peer support. Use metrics to keep a pulse on what’s resonating and having an impact so that you can adapt as needed and evolve your learning culture strategy as you grow.

Every organization is different, so the path to truly creating a culture of learning that will become a part of the ecosystem will be different as well. But with an intentional focus and commitment from the leadership team, you can plant the seeds today that allow a learning culture to flourish at your organization — resulting in a more agile work environment that’s prepared for the challenges of tomorrow.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Build a learning culture in your organization by providing ample access to growth and development opportunities. Take advantage of our leadership development subscription, CCL Passport for unlimited access to our world-renowned training content and our most comprehensive package of proven, transformative leadership solutions. If you license our content, you can bring our proven research, programs, and tools in-house to leaders at all levels of your organization.

Frequently Asked Questions About a Learning Culture

More questions? Our experts are here to help. Let’s have a conversation!

The post Cultivate a Learning Culture Within Your Organization appeared first on CCL.

When somebody disappoints you, fails to deliver what you expected, or lets you down in some way, what do you do?

If you’re like most people, you make assumptions that are usually not positive: “That guy isn’t a team player… he’s lazy… doesn’t care… or just doesn’t get it.”

And then you take action: “I’ll just find a workaround… get somebody else to do the work… rethink responsibilities… initiate discipline.”

We often don’t even realize that we create stories about people in our heads, especially when they disappoint us. This happens all the time. We see a behavior, assume we know why the other person acted a certain way, and react based on those assumptions.

But many difficulties can be avoided by having a clarifying discussion. Though people usually intend to do the right thing, sometimes something gets scrambled or misinterpreted along the way, and the impact is far from what they intended.

The only way to know what someone intended is to ask them — and the only way to let a person know their impact is to tell them. These important conversations rarely happen, though, and we move through our days in a tangle of misperceptions and actions, based on incorrect assumptions.

So, how do you, as a leader, tackle difficult conversations to find out why a person chose to behave a certain way? We recommend using our research-based, widely-recognized method for delivering feedback, Situation-Behavior-Impact, or (SBI).

The benefits of using SBI to give feedback and explore impact vs. intent are clear: Using the SBI method helps both parties become more comfortable with the feedback process. Our research shows that SBI reduces anxiety around giving feedback, as well as the defensiveness of the recipient in hearing it. We also found that employees rate managers as more effective when they give feedback more frequently.

What Does Situation-Behavior-Impact Mean?

The Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) method for giving someone feedback is simple and direct. You simply:

1. Clarify the Situation,
2. Describe the specific Behaviors observed, and
3. Explain the Impact that behavior had on you.

How Can You Use Situation-Behavior-Impact With Team Members?

The SBI feedback model is helpful when holding talent conversations with employees or when giving different types of feedback, as in these examples:

1. Situation:

Describe the specific situation in which the behavior occurred. Avoid generalities, such as “last week,” as that can lead to confusion.

• Example: “This morning at the 11 am team meeting…”
  

2. Behavior:

Describe the actual, observable behavior. Keep to the facts. Don’t insert any opinions or judgements.

• Example: “You interrupted me while I was telling the team about the monthly budget,” instead of “You were rude.”

3. Impact:

Describe the results of the behavior. Because you’re describing exactly what happened and explaining your true feelings — not passing judgement — the listener is more likely to absorb what you’re saying. If the effect was positive, words like “happy” or “proud” help underscore the success of the behavior. If the effect of the behavior was negative and needs to stop, you can use words such as “troubled” or “worried.”

• Example: “I was impressed when you addressed that issue without being asked” or “I felt frustrated when you interrupted me because it broke my train of thought.”

The success of Situation-Behavior-Impact is enhanced when the feedback, which is one-way, is accompanied by an inquiry about intent, which makes the conversation two-way.

Providing feedback to others about their performance is a key developmental experience. Learn how to make the feedback you give even more effective so that others can benefit from your message.

Build Trust By Exploring Intent vs. Impact With SBII

Extend the SBI Method for Feedback to Include Inquiring About Intent

Extending the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) tool for delivering feedback to be Situation-Behavior-Impact-Intent (SBII) allows you to have a conversation to learn more about the intentions behind a person’s actions or behaviors. Inquiring about intent can demonstrate compassionate leadership and prevents veering off in the wrong direction based on faulty assumptions. To do this, simply add a final step to Situation-Behavior-Impact:

4. Intent:

Inquire about the person’s original intentions. Inviting them to share where they were coming from helps you understand more about the other person’s experience of the situation and explore the gap together between intentions vs. impact, building greater trust and understanding.

• Example: “What were you hoping to accomplish with that?” or “What was going on for you?”

Then actively listen to the other person as they share their perspective. Simple solutions usually follow.

Asking about intent is also where good coaching starts. When you inquire about intention, motivation, or what’s behind an action, you’re essentially engaging in a coaching conversation — one that can make a positive difference well before a performance review or disciplinary conversation.

So, the next time you need to give someone some feedback, rather than making assumptions, just have a conversation with them. And remember to use Situation-Behavior-Impact-Intent (SBII).

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Upskill your team’s ability to give difficult feedback holding candid conversations and using SBII with a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-based modules. Available leadership topics include Conflict Resolution, Emotional Intelligence, Feedback That Works, Listening to Understand, Psychological Safety, and more.

The post Use Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI)™ to Understand Intent appeared first on CCL.

Feedback is sort of a necessary evil. No one particularly likes to listen to what they’re doing wrong, and often the words are difficult or confusing to hear. And giving feedback isn’t especially easy, either. But as a leader or coach, it’s your job to know how to give feedback, as constructive suggestions can help your direct reports and colleagues succeed. So make sure you understand what it takes to coach people.

Whatever your style or your company’s system, chances are that performance reviews are less-than-satisfying events for you and your direct reports. But learning how to give effective feedback and avoiding common feedback mistakes can make the difference between a meaningless (or disastrous) review and a constructive coaching conversation.

Feedback is one of the most important elements of successful performance reviews because it engages the employee in the conversation and puts the spotlight on key issues. In fact, we believe giving effective feedback is the key to improving your talent development.

If you understand the 4 types of feedback, and which one is most effective to start with, giving feedback will feel easier, and your reviews will improve.

What Is Effective Feedback?

The 4 Types of Feedback 

Which Seems Most Effective to You? 

Virtually all feedback can be classified as one of these 4 types:

1. Directive
2. Contingency
3. Attribution
4. Impact

1. Directive feedback tells someone what to do, even if you’re phrasing it “nicely.” For example, “I suggest that you make priorities clearer to your team.”
2. Contingency feedback gives a future consequence: “If you keep interrupting people in meetings, they’ll stop cooperating with you.”
3. Attribution feedback describes someone or their actions in terms of a quality or label, as in “You’re a good communicator” or “You’re undisciplined.”
4. Impact feedback informs the receiver about the effect their actions have had on other people or on the organization. Impact feedback is important in performance reviews because it can shed light on something your direct report never knew or thought about. It gets at why their behaviors are either working or not working. An example of impact feedback is: “Team members were confused, and I felt frustrated.”

You’ll be better at giving effective feedback if you’re skilled at using all 4 types of feedback for the right times and for the right reasons. You’ll be even better with lots of practice.

Why Impact Feedback Is the Most Effective Type of Feedback

It’s important to remember that you can’t control how someone feels about or reacts to feedback. Different people will perceive the same situation in different ways. You can’t “make” someone like or agree with what you’re saying, but you can increase the chances that your feedback will be well received and not rejected by learning how to give feedback effectively.

The recipient of feedback is more likely to take feedback well if it isn’t authoritative. If the feedback giver is perceived as leveraging positional power or as commanding, dominating, arrogant, or self-centered, the message will be lost. The recipient of the feedback is likely to be defensive or argumentative — or passively accept what you say, but resent the feedback and act in counterproductive ways later.

Among the 4 types of feedback, impact feedback is the most effective to start with because it informs a person about the results of their behavior without dissecting the details, assuming motivation, or placing blame. Try using our widely recognized Situation – Behavior – Impact model to give feedback and explore intentions, making the feedback a two-way discussion.

Impact feedback isn’t authoritative — you aren’t telling a person what to do, setting forth consequences, or judging. Instead, impact feedback informs the receiver, empowers them, and increases the chance they’ll decide to accept the message.

Impact feedback is a great way to start a conversation and set the stage for more authoritative feedback if it’s needed. Once the feedback receiver realizes the impact of their behavior, they’re more receptive to prescriptive aspects of authoritative forms of feedback.

Giving feedback to others about their performance is a key developmental experience. Learn how to make the feedback you give even more effective so that others are more likely to hear and benefit from your message.

How to Give Feedback: 10 Do’s & Don’ts

1. Discuss actions without judgment.

Do: Provide feedback that helps and supports employees. Feedback is about addressing specific actions — it’s not about fixing employees.

Don’t: Judge individuals. This can make people feel defensive by sending the message that only you know what’s right or wrong. 

2. Make sure the feedback is clear.

Do: Present clear and honest feedback, whether it’s negative or positive. If you want to encourage someone to repeat productive behaviors, also tell them what’s going well so they can keep doing it.

Don’t: Offer generalized, clichéd catchphrases that are vague.

3. Speak for yourself, not others.

Do: Deliver feedback based on the information that you know — and be clear that it’s coming from you.

Don’t: Drag a third party’s name into the mix. This can confuse the recipient, who then wonders why others are talking about them behind their back.

4. Embrace the value of negative feedback.

Do: Know that negative feedback can be a positive experience for employees. Our research (see below) suggests that most people actually prefer receiving more negative feedback than they’re getting.

Don’t: Sandwich negative feedback between positive messages. When you sandwich the feedback, employees will learn to ignore the first (positive) part because they know the bad news is coming next. And they won’t hear the last (positive) part because they will be focusing on the bad news. (See below for more advice on delivering negative feedback.)

5. Be intentional with the words you use.

Do: Think about what you’ll say before you say it. Like any skill, giving effective feedback requires practice — so plan time to rehearse the conversation if you need to.

Don’t: Use exaggerations such as “always” and “never.” Words like these can make people feel defensive because there’s usually that one time that was an exception.

6. Stick to feedback about behavior.

Do: Be specific about the behavior you observed.

Don’t: Psychoanalyze the motives behind behavior. It could be a divorce, resentment over a co-worker’s advancement, or burnout, but whatever you think you know about someone’s intents and motives is probably wrong.

7. Know the limits.

Do: Be concise and limit the number of examples and key points. People need time to process the information they’ve received.

Don’t: Go on too long or pile on with too many similar examples.

8. Deliver feedback with care.

Do: Show empathy. By showing that you genuinely care about their welfare, you’ll increase feedback recipients’ interest and enthusiasm for accepting and using the feedback.

Don’t: Imply a threat. Telling someone their job is in jeopardy doesn’t reinforce good behavior or illustrate bad behavior. It only creates animosity.

9. Keep snide comments to yourself.

Do: Deliver feedback with the tone appropriate for your team and culture.

Don’t: Use inappropriate humor and don’t substitute sarcasm for feedback.

10. Make declarative statements.

Do: Be direct, so the feedback conversation can be more effective.

Don’t: Phrase feedback as a question. It’s too indirect to be effective, and it may even be interpreted as sarcastic: Really?

How to Give Feedback That’s Negative

Based on Our Research to Help Employees Improve

Most of us like to give and receive positive feedback — it feels good, and it can be helpful to know what’s working. But negative feedback is just as important to help people improve what isn’t working. And, if done well, both kinds of feedback are motivating.

In fact, the employees we surveyed in past research reported that they’d actually prefer to get less positive feedback (65% as compared to the 77% they were getting) and more negative feedback (35% as compared to the 23% they were getting).

With careful thought and planning, negative feedback can be a valuable tool. In addition to the tips listed above, consider these best practices when offering negative feedback.

1. Aim to give feedback that’s 75% positive and 25% negative overall. When giving negative feedback, get straight to the point. It may seem like a good idea to lessen the blow of negative comments with positive ones, but the recipient is smart enough to read between the lines.
2. Give negative feedback as soon as possible after a key event, so the employee can accurately recall the event and avoid repeating the same behavior.
3. Create a favorable feedback environment. Within your team, and even your organization, valuing truth, courage, and a coaching culture along with psychological safety can pay off when employees are comfortable receiving, seeking out, and using feedback to improve their performance.

Trying to balance feedback — positive and negative — can feel uncomfortable. But with the right technique and plenty of practice, it can go more smoothly.

How to Customize Feedback to Avoid Resistance

Lastly, it’s natural that people will react differently to information about their behavior and performance. Although you can’t force someone to agree with the feedback you give, it may help to consider changing the way you deliver the message to maximize understanding and acceptance. When you’re considering how to give feedback, particularly negative feedback, keeping these things in mind can reduce resistance. 

1. Consider the specific situation.

Giving feedback to a new employee who’s anxious about their first presentation is different from giving feedback to a confident, long-term employee who’s eager for more visibility.

2. Remember that people process information differently.

Some people understand your message quickly, while others need time to absorb it. Some will want to focus on decisions, actions, and implications. Others will want to ponder and work out possible solutions on their own. Consider the different ways to influence people and choose the most effective tactic for your situation.

3. Factor in the recipient’s health, personal, and family problems.

Resistance to feedback or unexpected reactions may be connected to stresses and problems outside work. When you’re aware of a hardship or adversity, you may decide to adjust the timing and content of your feedback. But like we mentioned above, don’t assume you know what’s going on; be prepared to handle the unexpected.

4. Individualize your delivery — keep in mind your employee’s strengths and weaknesses.

For example, you may think a shoddy production report indicates disinterest or laziness. The recipient may agree the report was shoddy, but they may be embarrassed to admit they don’t understand the new method of calculation. So give feedback about the report, but allow the other person to offer their own reasons and possible solutions. Be sure you actively listen to understand their response.

And remember, there’s no need to psychoanalyze or judge the person. Just have a conversation, and avoid common feedback mistakes that leaders often make when giving different types of feedback.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Equip your leaders to know how to give feedback that helps others succeed. Partner with us to create a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-based modules, including Feedback That Works, Psychological Safety, Talent Conversations, and Listening to Understand.

The post How to Give Feedback Most Effectively appeared first on CCL.

What can you do to improve talent development?

Teach your leaders how to give feedback regularly and well (we recommend using our SBI feedback model), and help them to hold effective feedback conversations with employees.

This is the fastest way to improve talent development because individual leaders are in the best position to influence and develop talent — or shut it down. Managers can give employees good reasons to be engaged, work effectively, and build their skills.

Most importantly, a talent conversation isn’t done to someone, but with someone. It’s about building a relationship that allows managers to influence employees toward improved performance, development, and positive outcomes.

It’s one of the simplest yet most effective ways to develop others. And, if the employee has been given honest, ongoing feedback, these conversations don’t come as surprises.

Some of the most valuable types of feedback are given in the moment and on routine, day-to-day behaviors. When feedback is given consistently and well, managers establish and strengthen trust. The more trust and rapport managers can build, the more readily subordinates will accept and act on future feedback, creating a pattern of learning and growth.

In the face of unrelenting disruption, effective leadership is what’s needed most. Download our Talent Development report to learn how investing in talent development today will position your organization to succeed tomorrow.

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Hold More Constructive Feedback Conversations With Our SBI Feedback Model

First and foremost, make sure your managers know that giving feedback on a regular basis is more effective than saving it all for the performance review. Ongoing feedback conversations can:

• Motivate employees to continue a behavior that increases their effectiveness
• Encourage them to stop a behavior that reduces their impact
• Encourage employees to adopt or modify a behavior that will make them more effective
• Foster greater commitment to their work and the organization

Secondly, we recommend sharing any feedback using our SBI feedback model. It’s a simple ways for leaders to structure feedback conversations to capture and clarify the Situation, describe the specific Behaviors, and explain the Impact that the person’s behavior had.

Our SBI feedback model can be used to give both positive and negative feedback. It’s a process that may feel awkward or formal at first, but once managers get some practice, they tell us that they find it’s incredibly helpful.

The SBI Feedback Model in 3 Simple Steps

1. Describe the Situation.

Describe the specific situation in which the behavior occurred. Include the time and place to reduce any confusion.

2. Describe the Behavior.

Describe the actual, observable behavior being discussed. Keep to facts only and avoid inserting any opinions or judgments.

3. Describe the Impact.

Describe the results of the behavior in terms of the impact it had, whether the effect was positive or negative.

Take the Feedback Even Further by Asking About Intentions

Our SBI feedback model can be even more helpful when accompanied with an inquiry about intent. This turns the one-way act of giving feedback into a two-way dialogue, a feedback conversation, where both parties can have a clarifying discussion around intentions versus impact. Learn more about using SBI to explore intent vs. impact.

Feedback Conversations Can Be Talent Conversations

Feedback conversations can be thought of as talent conversations. They’re an opportunity for managers to influence their direct reports towards improved performance, development, and positive outcomes.

Feedback conversations can happen at any time, and are part of what it takes to coach your people on an ongoing basis. But one of the most critical moments for holding effective talent conversations is during your organization’s regular performance review process.

Here are some guidelines to consider for those times.

First, Understand the 4 Types of Talent Conversations

Managers need to be prepared to hold 4 types of talent conversations, based on how an employee is doing. The first step is to clarify whether the employee is considered top talent, a solid performer, a potential performer, or an underperformer. The feedback conversation will have a different focus, depending on how the employee is viewed. From there, you will know where to focus the feedback conversation.

The Top Talent Conversation

Focus on future investment. Individuals who clearly meet or exceed expectations and deliver superior results are top talent. These are the individuals who are seen as the future leaders in the organization. Be sure you’re being thoughtful about engaging this high-potential talent.

The Solid Performer Conversation

Focus on maintaining or building value. Solid performers are typically individual contributors who are valued by the organization but could take on more responsibility.

The Potential Performer Conversation

Focus on short-term success for now. Potential performers are individuals who may not have had enough time in their role to show significant results but are expected to bring a lot to the role they’re in.

The Underperformer Conversation

Focus on improving performance. Underperformers are not meeting expectations. The feedback conversation should remain focused on the here and now rather than future options, new tasks, or additional responsibilities. Learn more about managing a difficult employee.

Discover how to use talent conversations to build relationships based on rapport, collaboration, and mutual commitment and help your team improve performance, focus development, and reach positive outcomes.

How to Structure a Feedback Conversation With Your Talent

Whatever other formal talent management or leadership development systems are in place, feedback conversations are where development becomes real. It’s the best time for managers to build their direct report’s commitment to the organization and engagement in the work.

So the feedback conversation itself should have a structure, too. Things will go more smoothly if you follow these 6 steps:

1. Clarify the goal. What’s the purpose of the feedback conversation? What exactly does each person want to accomplish?
2. Explore the issues. Assess strengths, vulnerabilities, development needs, and performance. Identify motivation and career aspirations.
3. Identify the options. Generate ideas and opportunities for learning and improvement.
4. Set expectations. What do we want to do first? Next? What are the obstacles?
5. Motivate. What support is needed? Are you sure the goals are meaningful? How can I help and what else is needed?
6. Identify the plan. How will we know you are on target? How will we track outcomes?

Learn even more about our recommendations for holding feedback conversations with your direct reports in our guidebook, Talent Conversations: What They Are, Why They’re Crucial, and How to Do Them Right.

Demands placed on managers to meet performance goals can be relentless, and priorities and challenges shift frequently. That’s why the key to improving your talent development processes is ensuring that your managers can hold meaningful feedback conversations with talent (and again, our SBI feedback model is a great tool for that).

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Upskill your team’s capacity for holding effective feedback conversations. We can create a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-based modules. Available leadership topics include Conflict Resolution, Emotional Intelligence, Feedback That Works, Listening to Understand, Psychological Safety, and Talent Conversations.

The post Improve Talent Development With Our SBI Feedback Model appeared first on CCL.