Consultants Roundtable

Eastern and Central MA

Next Roundtable Event:

Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Reducing Defensive Reactions
to Feedback
with Mira Furth
8:00 - 9:30 am

Regus Riverside Center, Newton, MA
Suite 2-400
Click here for directions

As consultants, we have all experienced our clients’ challenges when faced with the need to deliver ‘constructive’ performance feedback. Having coached dozens of managers on the ‘art’ of performance feedback I am very excited about a new tool I have been recently introduced to. The Performance Continuum Feedback Method® (PCFM) helps managers create “hearable” and “sayable” performance messages that have a greater chance for a “you’re right, I do need to work on this” employee response.

For our clients, managing talent is part of their job. This often includes the necessity of initiating critical discussions. Most managers can intuitively assess and describe employee performance issues, but what is difficult is communicating this information to the employee. Nearly all managers dread initiating these conversations and often avoid them whenever possible causing performance issues to worsen over time. Frequently, the area for development relates to difficult to quantify behaviors such as interpersonal skills, personality traits, motivation and attitude. Discussing these issues with an employee can seem out of the question. The underlying problem is the inability to translate what is “known” into effective words that are both comfortable to say and will have the right effect on the employee.

The PCFM represents a direction that is different from established feedback approaches because it bypasses the need to raise negative performance examples. Even with the best of intentions, the message usually feels confrontational thus causing most employees to react defensively. With the PCFM, performance messages come across as non-threatening. This allows the feedback receiver to remain open to listening to the information as opposed to engaging in a confrontational exchange with the person delivering the message. Avoidance of defensive reactions enables managers and employees to come to terms more quickly around developmental solutions and goals.

If you are looking for new strategies for helping your clients to convey performance feedback more effectively, then take time out of your busy workweek to participate in this interactive Roundtable conversation.

Mira Fürth, M.Ed. is the founder of INTELLIGENT LEADERSHIP ENTERPRISES. At the heart of intelligent leadership is the belief that Productive Relationships=Engaged Performance

Mira consults organizations on developing a culture of intelligent leadership. Intelligent leaders' actions are informed by their self knowledge, social knowledge and organizational knowledge. Intelligent leadership is an essential quality in today's complex business environment at all levels of the organization, from individual contributors to those in formal management/leadership roles.

She is a certified facilitator of the Performance Continuum Feedback Method® (PCFM), a tool for systematically diagnosing employee performance issues and development opportunities and crafting messages about even the most sensitive issues. The PCFM teaches diagnostic and communications skills which through a series of exact steps, allow managers to communicate critical performance information to their employees in order to drive measurable and positive changes in behavior and job competence. Mira has become a thought leader and innovator in the area of intelligent leadership practices including non-confrontational performance feedback conversations.

Walk-ins are welcome. Coffee is available. Food can be purchased in the Café.