How to Shine at Work

Honesty implies a refusal to lie or to deceive anyone in any way (including lying to yourself). When you are honest, you tell the whole truth in a constructive (positive, productive) way. No slamming, no digs or cracks, no gossip—only helpful and practical communication is allowed here.

How do you say it all while remaining truthful, positive, and productive? Most of us do not like to have conversations that will make us (or others) uncomfortable, yet there are some occasions in a politically charged environment when we need to have a talk that falls into the category of “difficult.” There are ways to turn these fear-inducing, intimidating discussions into constructive conversations: focus.

• Focus on the real issue. Some people are so uncomfortable when receiving any form of feedback that they deflect the discussion from the issue at hand to some other issue—or, more often, some other person. Deflecting is a way to avoid responsibility and put you on the defensive; thus, the discussion becomes “about you” rather than “about the issue.” Turn the discussion around and stay focused on the solution.

• Focus on the behavior, not the person. When you need to speak to someone about a difficult situation, do it gently. Focus on the person’s behavior, not his or her personality. Make sure to take time to listen, and then move toward working on the desired outcome.

Try for an Oreo cookie: Present one positive feedback issue, one learning issue, then another positive feedback issue. Present each as a separate fact. Rather than saying, “Your report on the fraud audit was excellent, and you’ve done a great job of managing to your budget so far this year, but your team is filing incomplete credit reports on new clients, so you need to fix that,” try this:

“We have three things to discuss. First, your report on the fraud audit was excellent—good job. Second, I’ve noticed that several of your staff have filed incomplete credit reports on new clients—when the credit reports are incomplete, the implementation date is delayed, it creates a challenge in accounting, and your employee’s commissions are delayed. I’d like you to devise a plan to get that back on target and stay there, so that all of your credit reports are completed on time. Can you have the plan to me by next Monday? And finally, you are to be commended for managing to a very tight budget—congratulations.”

Consider the following examples of feedback:

Good form for feedback:

• I like the general idea, but let’s talk about this—here’s the flaw as I see it . . .

• I certainly don’t have a solution, but something isn’t working for me about this idea. Let’s work on this . . .

• Here’s what I suggest that you consider . . .

Poor form for feedback:

• That idea sucks.

• That’s not going to work.

• You don’t know what you’re doing.

You can maintain a sense of optimism in any difficult conversation by setting your focus on the future and being completely honest. Work on the solution.