interview

After establishing rapport through an exchange of small talk, I explained to Ms. Manager that our class was learning about risky situations at work. I gave her some examples, such as delivering negative feedback or suggesting new ideas when your coworkers preferred not to change. She asked what I meant by “risky”. I explained that risky situations were those that threatened our relationships with co-workers, our jobs, or even the success of our company.

She quickly focused on negative feedback. Ms. Manager explained that it was part of her job to give negative feedback to underperforming employees. In some cases she is blamed for the bad news when, in fact, it is the poor performing employee who is at fault. Her relationship with that employee is sometimes strained. I followed up by asking Ms. Manager how she communicates in these situations. She starts by asking employees to share their own view of their performance. Based on her description, I recognized that Ms. Manager was aware of threats to negative face. Her approached granted the employee some freedom (autonomy) to control the situation. This tactful approach was mentioned in the study by Wagoner and Waldron, cited in chapter 2 of the text.

I probed with more questions. What else had Ms. Manager learned about delivering feedback? She said that it helps to deal with negative feedback in private. This idea was one of the principles for giving feedback, mentioned in Chapter 2.

My next question was about 360 degree feedback. I mentioned that we had read about in class. What did she think about it? Did her company use this approach in performance evaluation? Ms. Manage was familiar with the idea and noted that she received feedback from both her boss and those employees who she supervises. I probed a bit more. Were her employees nervous about giving feedback to her boss? Ms. Manager explained that the feedback is anonymous. She only receives a summary from the Human Resources department. Our text stressed that employees must feel safe if 360% feedback is to be effective. It seems that Ms. Manager’s company is implementing this idea.