Welcome back to giving helpful feedback. This video puts the spotlight not on the person so much getting the feedback, but on you, the person delivering the feedback. This skill is to make feedback controllable by the employee. Before we define what we mean, let's take a quick review of the skills we've covered already. There are specific behavioral feedback, keeping feedback impersonal, goal-focused feedback, timing of feedback, and ensuring feedback is understood. That's a lot to keep in mind, but we'll adjust that problem a little bit later. In this video, we examine whether feedback is controllable by the employee. So, let's get to the definition. We'll start with an example. Let's say that you're telling an employee to stop smoking on the loading dock at work. Smoking is under the control of the employee, more or less. They can stop smoking at that moment or they can move to a designated smoking area. Another example, you may also tell your teenager will stop texting at the dinner table. Texting is under the control of your teenager. Let's look at the slightly different situation, let's say you discipline employee who's late for work. It may not be controllable by the employee because a bridge might have fallen down, blocking traffic. However, if the employee is late because of traffic, and traffic is a somewhat common occurrence, it probably is under the control of the employee because they simply have to leave a little bit earlier so that they can come in on time, and this distinction is very, very important. If you discipline employee for being late, and it is not under their control, they will feel that the feedback you just gave them is unfair. Let's take one other example in the same case. This time, you've asked the employee to pick up some supplies vital to your project before they arrive in the morning. The supply pick up takes longer than expected because the manager's instructions were unclear, and then as a result the employee is late. In this situation, is lateness controllable by the employee? Perhaps, but here the manager also bears responsibility. So, if the manager disciplines the employee for being late, the employee will feel the discipline is unfair even though they were late. Situations where managers are part of the problem are all too common. So much so that we'll talk about this in another video, so you can understand why, and the typical situations where managers are at fault. Let's get into a few examples. And, these examples will show up on your screen. And what you need to do is determine whether the situation is controllable by employees. Not controllable by employees, or you don't really have enough information to tell. The first example will come on the screen now. In the first situation that is controllable by the employee, they don't have to be on the social networks. Now we'll go to the second situation. In the second situation, it is not controllable by the employee. It was the manager's fault. They forgot to tell them about a key deadline. Let's go to the third situation. This one is a bit unclear. Has a supervisor made it clear that email is an official communication channel that needs to be constantly monitored? Are employees required to check it every day? And why did the employee miss the email? Were they out of the office? Were they sick? Were they on assignment? In all of these situations this would add some doubt as to whether it was controllable or not by the employee. Now let's change the situation in bed, and instead of the boss getting negative feedback, they give you positive feedback. Let's say you work in an auto dealership, and you have to be on the showroom floor between 11 and 12. Well, a rich person enters the dealership with the bag full of cash, and buys the most expensive car on the lot. They hand you this suitcase full of cash, the deal is over, they drive off with the car. Your boss goes wild. And they praise you for your sales skills and your ability to cut a fast deal. Well, how do you feel about that praise? You may feel a lot of things, but deserving of the praise is not one of them. So, the lesson of this example is, you also need to make sure that your positive praise is controllable as well, because people will appreciate it when you notice the things that they did right that were under their control. Why is it so important to look carefully at whether the feedback is controllable by employees? Employees who feel they've been treated unfairly often have a strong reaction. The source of the perceived unfairness is because a manager may have failed to do their job correctly. Now, we're going to put some practice examples online for you so you could try this skill out yourself. In summary, make sure your feedback is controllable by the employee, you'll be perceived as more fair, if it is controllable, and employee's will be more willing to follow your lead if you do. [MUSIC]
