Tag Archives: feedback

Practical advice for designing a 360-degree feedback process

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Topic: Feedback, Change Management
Publication: Journal of Business and Psychology (MAY 2011)
Article: When does 360-degree feedback create behavior change? And how would we know it when it does?
Authors: Bracken, D. W., Rose, D. S.
Reviewed by: Alexandra Rechlin

Have you ever participated in a 360-degree feedback process that seemed pointless and didn’t appear to change anything at all? If so, you’re not alone. However, a 360-degree feedback process, when well designed, has the potential for lasting behavioral change. This article discusses critical design factors of a 360-degree feedback process used to create sustainable behavioral and organizational change. The authors also provide questions for future research and practical advice for making the process successful. Four critical design factors are discussed: relevant content, credible data, accountability, and census (organizationwide) participation.

Relevant content: The authors recommend using custom surveys rather than standardized tools, but they acknowledge that there’s quite a bit of debate about this. They argue that custom surveys can increase motivation and engagement due to their meaning and relevance.

Credible data: You need to have reliable data, but your stakeholders also need to perceive your data as being reliable.

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Feedback as the Driver of Successful Mentoring Relationships

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Topic: Mentoring
Publication: Journal of Vocational Behavior
Article: Protégé anxiety attachment and feedback in mentoring relationships (APR 2010)
Author: T. D. Allen, K. M. Shockley, L. Poteat
Reviewed by: Sarah Teague

 

Many organizations have systems in place to help new hires transition smoothly into the workplace. This process is called socialization. One technique that has garnered increased attention and proven successful is mentoring. This process partners new hires (protégés) with experienced employees (mentors) who guide them through their transition to becoming full contributors to the organization.

A recent study by Allen, Shockley, and Poteat (2010) sought to investigate the feedback process in mentor-protégé relationships and the impact that feedback has on performance; particularly with regard to individuals exhibiting anxious attachment styles. Anxious attachment is one dimension used to describe bonds formed by (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) in which individuals are “preoccupied with thoughts about relationships and the need for approval” (Allen, Shockly, & Poteat, 2010, p. 74). These individuals typically have a more negative view of themselves and desire to protect themselves from failure and rejection.

Results show that protégés exhibiting anxious attachment engaged in less feedback seeking and were less likely to accept the feedback offered to them by mentors. Additionally, protégé feedback acceptance was linked to more frequent (and better quality) feedback from the mentor.

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How Positive Feedback Helps Prevent Negative Outcomes

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Topic: Feedback
Publication: Applied Psychology: An International Review (APR09)
Article: Consequences of positive and negative feedback: The impact on emotions and extra-role behaviors
Authors: F. D. Belschak, D. N. Den Hartog
Reviewed By: Sarah Teague

Two recent studies conducted by Belschak and Den Hartog (2009) investigated the impact of positive and negative feedback on emotions and several important work outcomes. Not surprisingly, results suggest that positive feedback leads to more positive emotions, while negative feedback leads to more negative emotions. More importantly, they found that these negative emotions led to a decrease in both organizational commitment (feelings of attachment to one’s organization) and intent to perform organizational citizenship behaviors (voluntary actions that help the organization).  They also led to an an increase in counterproductive work behaviors (behaviors that hurt the organization) and turnover
intentions.

Taken together, people who receive positive feedback are happier and consequently more committed and productive to their organizations. In cases when negative feedback must be given, the authors suggest framing the feedback in a positive way (e.g. think learning experiences instead of mistakes) and generally being supportive.

Belschak, F. D., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2009). Consequences of positive and negative feedback: The impact on emotions and extra-role behaviors. Applied Psychology:
An International Review, 58(2), 274-303.

Knowledge is Power: What Makes Employees Share It?

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Topic: Job Design, Motivation
Publication: Human Resource Management (NOV/DEC 2009)
Article: Encouraging knowledge sharing among employees: How job design matters
Authors: N.J. Foss, D.B. Minbaeva, T. Pedersen, and M. Reinholt
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

It’s no secret that knowledge sharing among employees is an absolute necessity for many organizations.  So what can organizations do to facilitate knowledge sharing among its employees?

Foss and colleagues (2009) recently showed that several characteristics of employees’ jobs predict employee motivation to share knowledge. Foss et al. studied this phenomenon using a sample of 186 employees working in a large German manufacturing company.

The authors studied three important job characteristics: autonomy, task identity, and feedback.  Autonomy refers to the amount of control employees have over work tasks, task identity refers to whether employees complete entire tasks from start to finish or pieces of tasks, and feedback refers to the amount and quality of feedback employees receive on the job.

Foss et al. found that all three job characteristics predict employee motivation to share knowledge, albeit quite differently. For instance, job autonomy predicted employees’ intrinsic motivation (e.g., enjoyable, stimulating) for sharing knowledge which was strongly and favorably related to (1) the amount of information received from others and (2) the amount of knowledge sent to others. Feedback, on the other hand, was positively related to external motivation (e.g., rewards), which was actually unfavorably related to sending knowledge and unrelated to receiving knowledge.

Additionally, Foss and colleagues found that task identity predicted whether employees were motivated to maintain and enhance social relationships within the organization. This type of motivation related favorably to the amount of knowledge employees shared with others.

Overall, job autonomy has the strongest and most favorable influence on knowledge sharing among employees. Employees who are motivated to share knowledge because of external reasons (e.g., rewards) may actually engage in less knowledge sharing. Ultimately, Foss et al.’s results suggest that high levels of autonomy and task identity are important for jobs that require a great deal of knowledge sharing.

Foss, N.J., Minbaeva, D.B., Pedersen, T., & Reinholt, M. (2009). Encouraging knowledge sharing among employees: How job design matters. Human Resource Management, 48(6), 871-893.

The Goal Revision Seesaw: What Makes it Move?

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Topic: Self Efficacy, Goals
Publication: The Journal of Applied Psychology (2008)
Article: The role of feedback, causal attributions, and self-efficacy in goal revision .Author: A.P. Tolli, A.M. Schmidt
Reviewed by: Benjamin Granger

One thing that we know is that employees frequently revise their performance goals. But we know less about how and why they do so….until now. In a recent study from Journal of Applied Psychology, Tolli and Schmidt attempted to empirically answer the questions of how and why employees revise their goals over time.  This should be particularly interesting to any manager or supervisor interested in understanding how employees set their goals at work and subsequently perform on the job.

The authors found self-efficacy (the extent to which individuals are confident that they can perform well on a future task) influenced how individuals revised their goals. Employees who have high levels of self-efficacy for performing a task tend to set higher goals (and the managers celebrate!), while those who aren’t very confident tend to set lower goals than before (and the managers….well, we won’t even go there).

The study found that self-efficacy is influenced by causal attribution (the extent to which individuals feel that performance is attributable to them versus the environment) and feedback (positive or negative). When employees don’t perform well and feel that their performance was attributable to themselves, their self-efficacy for the task is substantially lowered and thus following goals will be less aggressive. Self-efficacy, and therefore goals, remain higher when poor performance is attributed to external factors (but boss, it wasn’t my fault!!).

Now that we better understand how and why employees revise their goals, the next issue is figuring out the most effective ways in which organizations and supervisors can influence these motivational factors in order to help employees set aggressive, yet realistic goals.

Questions: Where in this process can a manager or organization intervene? Do these relationships change when we consider multiple goals as opposed to a single goal as was the case in the current study? Do we always want employees to have high self-efficacy for a task? What if high self-efficacy leads to lower performance?

Tolli, A. P., & Schmidt, A. M. (2008). The role of feedback, causal attributions, and self-efficacy in goal revision. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(3), 692-701.