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How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

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Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#161

Post by rawgabbit »

ilitirit wrote: post #156

This title of my article doesn't make much sense to me. Why would you get fired for giving feedback? Is this just a US thing? I give feedback to my superiors all the time, and expect my subordinates to do the same. In fact, as far as my team goes, you're more likely to get into trouble (not fired) if you rarely give feedback.

American workplaces are very toxic. Waves of managers ride on the coattails of the latest dude in charge. That they are completely clueless doesn’t prevent them from getting the job. If you point out their failures, you will immediately be labeled as part of the opposition.

In other words, this is pure Machiavellian politics. The truth doesn’t matter. If you don’t kiss the donkey’s ass, the best advice IMO is to shut the hell up, collect your paycheck, and go home and kiss your wife. Your family is the only people who matter. The farce will go on for years. Like all Ponzi schemes, it will eventually collapse. But it may take years.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#162

Post by lazystar »

ilitirit wrote: post #160
lazystar wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when your boss is a one-upper who doesnt understand your teams product, they will do everything possible to sabatoge your efforts and spin metrics to make you look bad. attempting to give feedback to such a person will get you this response: "you need to earn trust and learn to disagree and commit". idk if this is a US thing; its mainly a thing where a manager is tasked with supporting a product that they dont unders…

> give feedback to such a person will get you this response: "you need to earn trust and learn to disagree and commit" Sure, but you won't get fired, right? Even so, this is just about dealing in general with people who have ego (for the sake of brevity) issues. I don't understand why this should be advice for dealing with senior leadership in general.

> Sure, but you won't get fired, right?

in my experience, they will start an email paper trail as a precursor to a PIP.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#163

Post by switch007 »

lisper wrote: post #2

Another tactic I like to use is a riff on the authors suggestion #3: “Is there a reason you did (or did not do) X?” This works because it’s framed as accepting the decision and being genuinely curious about the rationale. Often the answer is: no, I never really gave it any thought. Other times there turns out to be a good reason that didn’t occur to me and it turns into a learning experience for me. Another tactic th…

> "Is there a reason you did (or did not do) X?”

I think many people would take that as a direct challenge of their decision.

I'm no human expert but personally I'd try something like "Man I bet you had to make some tradeoffs and juggle priorities over $X right ! ..." and then see what they offer up. At the water-cooler, bar etc

> "Can I offer a suggestion?”

It's not the done thing to say no to that but depending on the tone a lot of people would then just ignore whatever comes out your mouth

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#164

Post by jms703 »

stavros wrote: post #124
hashtag-til wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, you build that non-fluff boundaries in the first one or two meetings with a senior leader. I’d advise against going in the first one throwing punches. Go with actionable feedback and be honest about what it is and what is not something you can solve. From there, if you genuinely care about whatever you’re complaning, you are more likely to be taken seriously.

> I’d advise against going in the first one throwing punches. I’d advise against going in any one throwing punches. Instead, give actionable, honest, factual feedback with the intent to legitimately help the other person.

This is the correct approach.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#165

Post by rendall »

This is all cultural. As an immigrant from New York to a Nordic country, I have been lucky enough to experience two working cultures intimately. New Yorkers are considered blunt and no-nonsense, but I had no idea. Nordics are utter minimalists when it comes to feedback. It is unadorned and without any frills whatsoever. None of this couching the ouch between two positives. Nordics make New Yorkers look like Californians.

They will genuinely be confused by American-style feedback. Did you ever notice that we use a lot of superlatives? Something we like is the best, we love it, it's the greatest ever? That's not bad, it's just our style of talking, but the untrained Nordic will take that seriously. I have to tone that way down: "That code is really well done."

Moreover, you are required to give truthful feedback, here. It's not optional. If you think something is a bad idea and you don't say anything, you are doing a bad. If somehow you're caught not saying something, or worse, lying and saying you think it's a good idea, you will be in trouble and lose reputation.

This approach to giving and getting feedback took some getting used to, but I find it refreshing and I am afraid I'm spoiled for any other way.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#166

Post by sixhobbits »

There are a lot of comments about the up vs down hierarchy thing, but I think it's not really the most important factor for "giving feedback", which here seems to mean more "advocating for change".

The important factors are

- do you have a good understanding of where your goals and priorities differ and where they overlap? Maybe you want to reduce tech debt and your manager wants to hit q3 goals. Then saying "spending 1 week addressing this issue will allow us to implement features a,b,c in 2 weeks instead of 4" is stating your goal with an emphasis on how it helps manager get to theirs.

- do you have an existing relationship of trust? Humans are pretty tribal. If person you're talking to up or down defaults to "this is an ally who usually says competent things" then you can be much more direct and blunt. "Your idea is stupid because of these flaws that you didn't consider". If you don't have that trust, then some of the sugar coating "fluff" is necessary to avoid emotional reactions.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#167

Post by ctxc »

zabzonk wrote: post #125
cgio wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a senior leader myself, that was my initial reaction. Then, I thought about myself and cohort and I would say, unfortunately, the advice in the article is required. There are challenges in feedback in both directions. E.g.the people who are best at receiving it are the ones who usually don't, either because they are strong in many other things than the feedback domain, or because they seem so self confident that p…

Well, "senior leader", if this is the kind of incomprehensible stuff you routinely come up with, I'm amazed your teams produce anything.

Formatting/phrasing could be improved, but incomprehensible? I don't think so.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#168

Post by switch007 »

rawgabbit wrote: post #161
ilitirit wrote: post #156

This title of my article doesn't make much sense to me. Why would you get fired for giving feedback? Is this just a US thing? I give feedback to my superiors all the time, and expect my subordinates to do the same. In fact, as far as my team goes, you're more likely to get into trouble (not fired) if you rarely give feedback.

American workplaces are very toxic. Waves of managers ride on the coattails of the latest dude in charge. That they are completely clueless doesn’t prevent them from getting the job. If you point out their failures, you will immediately be labeled as part of the opposition. In other words, this is pure Machiavellian politics. The truth doesn’t matter. If you don’t kiss the donkey’s ass, the best advice IMO is to shut…

That's an incredible summary, totally matching my experience

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#169

Post by hcfman »

Re-title the article to be called

“How can I suck up EVEN MORE than I am now”

I understand the wisdom that they are trying to convey. But sucking up to those on higher pay grades like this for the greater good of the company? I think if it’s that dangerous providing feedback to the company then upper management need to put even more effort into determining who makes good leadership material.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#170

Post by rendall »

thanksgiving wrote: post #60
5cott0 wrote: post #35

Captain Miller: "I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger." Private Reiben: "I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?" Captain…

I don’t get it. He said gripe to his superior but he is basically kissing ass?

I interpreted it to mean that he was still Captain and part of his job was to keep up morale and model positive attitude. Even hypothetically, he was not going to gripe to his troops, and as far as they are concerned, he believes it is a worthy mission. He was jokingly modeling the proper, positive attitude. All this was understood by his men.
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