Should be renamed: "How to not offend people with fragile self-esteem"
How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
201–210 of 346 posts
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#202In aviation this is what Crew Resource Management is about, and in particular, how to make sure the monitoring pilot, who may be the least experienced one, can effectively supervise and review the actions of the other. Many crashes were the result of copilots' fear of speaking up. Business life could learn from this. The person in charge is not a king, they're simply the person tasked with making decisions. There is…
That story in Gladwell about the (IIRC) Korean Air having to switch cockpit languages to English in order to escape the intrinsic layers of deference built into the language was hardcore. They were going to get delisted in Canada if they didn't do it. Yeah, better than crashing into a mountain. That cockpit voice recording was really chilling. Gladwell gets a lot of flack, but he's told some interesting stories. And…
> Gladwell gets a lot of flack, but he's told some interesting stories.
Isn't the flack he's getting due to exactly that, that his stories would be interesting if true but often aren't?
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
That story in Gladwell about the (IIRC) Korean Air having to switch cockpit languages to English in order to escape the intrinsic layers of deference built into the language was hardcore. They were going to get delisted in Canada if they didn't do it. Yeah, better than crashing into a mountain. That cockpit voice recording was really chilling. Gladwell gets a lot of flack, but he's told some interesting stories. And…
> Gladwell gets a lot of flack, but he's told some interesting stories. Isn't the flack he's getting due to exactly that, that his stories would be interesting if true but often aren't?
I haven't followed stories about him, but I doubt that all or even most of his stories were made up. I mean, the Korean Air (IIRC) one can't have been fudged, right?
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#204Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start poli…
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Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#205Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start poli…
25% of my manager and above in big tech have acted in the ideal way you describe, and the rest have been back stabbing, childish, two faced, toxic, and many other negative traits, making any open honest or direct communication impossible
Honestly, if you've had decent management 25% of the time, you're doing much better than the rest of us.
Management is hard, because it makes significant emotional demands on us, and a lot of people deal with the combination of power and emotions badly.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, Americans are much more likely to see criticism as a threat or an insult than in most European business cultures, where blunt feedback is common. I’ve seen many teams in different companies led by Americans where simply pointing out that a plan will fail in a public forum is tantamount to spitting in their face. It’s absurd, and it destroys teams.
The gap is much bigger between Americans and Chinese/Indian than it is between American and European. I’m not just talking about public forums. Saying anything to your superior (perceived superior or otherwise) would result in disciplinary action nearly 100% of the time. It is not even about blunt vs tactful feedback. It’s about any feedback. You do exactly what you’re told and you shut the fuck up.
I found that out the hard way first time I worked in a company with European managers and majority Indian ICs. Acting European got me PIPed and then fired so damned fast for failure to shut up and do the needful.
I don’t think H1Bism is even primarily about depressing IC wages in the west, it’s about middle managers being so burdened with pointless make-work from above that they just don’t have time to lead. They need people who don’t need to be led even if it costs in terms of quality and efficiency.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#207Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start poli…
There is some important piece of context there though - if leaders aren't capable of the emotional intelligence to process blunt feedback, they are bad leaders and there is no hope of change. Learning to recognise them and just leave them alone is one of those valuable life skills that most employees learn sooner or later. Some people are just not going to take feedback and if they end up in management that is that; there is nothing to do but enjoy the show as best you can.
In that situation fluffing the feedback will do nothing. It might take years of effort to get marginal improvements and it is more productive to focus on something that is ... well ... more productive.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#208This was one of the most exhausting aspects of working for a US company, especially as an H1B. Simply: just don't say anything, it wasn't worth it. I'm from cultures where we bluntly call a spade a spade and pride ourselves on disdain for hierarchy. There's far less fear in raising concerns generally to anyone, but it's quite possibly because of the far better employment laws.
Sounds like you are Norwegian.
Or Swedish, Danish, German, Finnish, Dutch, and many other European countries where the laws protect workers.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#209In aviation this is what Crew Resource Management is about, and in particular, how to make sure the monitoring pilot, who may be the least experienced one, can effectively supervise and review the actions of the other. Many crashes were the result of copilots' fear of speaking up. Business life could learn from this. The person in charge is not a king, they're simply the person tasked with making decisions. There is…
It’s fascinating how resistant pretty much every industry is to taking lessons from aviation, considering how much empirical evidence there is compared to almost every other management paradigm, which basically amounts to “just trust me bro”.
It particularly shocked me working in shipping where the lessons can be implemented pretty much without modification since it’s all the same work except they move in 2 rather than 3 dimensions.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#210Very simple. Make sure the feedback is positive. You can give negative feedback on Glassdoor.