Supervision
Basically, supervising involves overseeing the progress and productivity of employees, often by:
a) Mutually setting goals and objectives
b) Supporting conditions for their motivation
c) Observing performance and giving feedback and other forms of guidance
d) Conducting regular performance appraisals/reviews
e) Addressing performance problems
f) Ensuring sufficient rewards
Observing and Giving Feedback
Giving Constructive Feedback
An OPL (One Point Lesson) on the 6 main ingredients for success in providing positive feedback that will guarantee to motivate.
Receiving Constructive Feedback
An OPL (One Point Lesson) on the 7 main ingredients for success when receiving constructive feedback that will ensure positive results.
McGill and Beatty (in “Action learning: A practitioner’s guide”, London: Kogan Page, 1994, p. 159-163) provide useful suggestions about sharing effective feedback:
- Clarity — Be clear about what you want to say.
- Emphasize the positive — This isn’t being collusive in the person’s dilemma.
- Be specific — Avoid general comments and clarify pronouns such as “it,” “that,” etc.
- Focus on behavior rather than the person.
- Refer to behavior that can be changed.
- Be descriptive rather than evaluative.
- Own the feedback — Use ‘I’ statements.
- Generalizations — Notice “all,” “never,” “always,” etc., and ask to get more specificity — often these words are arbitrary limits on behavior.
- Be very careful with advice — People rarely struggle with an issue because of the lack of some specific piece of information; often, the best help is helping the person to come to a better understanding of their issue, how it developed, and how they can identify actions to address the issue more effectively.