Maybe you already know the importance of training your staff and volunteers. Maybe you’re already great at appreciating them. Maybe you’ve already outlined clearly the role your supervisors must perform.
Maybe you still need a little bit of guidance when it comes to effectively communicating constructive criticism. This resource is perfect for providing tips and reminders on how to deliver constructive coaching to your volunteers (or staff). Feel free to build off my outline or design one specific to your organization.
It’s always important to remember your intention when providing criticism. Your intent (hopefully) is not to harass someone out of your organization by making them feel like a failure at what they do. You want to encourage your volunteer or staff to build their skills and get better at what they do. Typically, you’re not on a fault-finding mission wanting to eliminate them. You want to enhance their performance which in turns increases your ability to hit your targets.
Having a way to measure or evaluate each position in an organization, paid or unpaid, can help you be clear on the importance of good performance. You can use these measurables to set realistic goals for your staff so that they can incrementally improve. However, if it’s difficult to assign quantitative value to the job, there are still ways to communicate and monitor performance based on quality.
Find the full resource here, and see below for a quick summary:
- State the purpose of your feedback.
- Describe specifically what you’ve observed.
- Describe your reaction.
- Give the person an opportunity to respond.
- Offer suggestions and provide reasoning for your correction.
- Summarize and express your support.
One of the most important things I’ve learned over the years is
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
Mike Kerr
A Personal Story
I had a boss that would often say nice things in emails. However, in person she was often rude, abrasive, manipulative, or just ignored you. Whenever her staff would read the “nice” things she wrote in emails, they would disregard them or read into them as being extremely negative.
A year after I left the job, I listened to a coworker complain about things she was doing. From an outside perspective, they didn’t seem that bad at all. But having been in that role, I knew exactly what was going on. People read into things. People take things personally, especially young and inexperienced workers.
It’s so important to act with authenticity, integrity, compassion and kindness if you are going to inspire your staff to work hard. You’ll get so much more out of them than if you employ the chains and whips of threats and fear.
Giving feedback is often difficult, but I can help make it easier. If you need more specific support or guidance, contact me for a coffee.
The Halfwit Writer 