Your Best Time Management Technique is Giving Feedback!

This is weird advice, I know.  

The #1 barrier people bring up when I suggest frequent feedback is that they don’t have time. No time to meet with people. No time to prepare to meet with people. And no time to have long drawn-out conversations that are worded just right so people don’t get upset. 

The Big Misperception

The common belief is that a lot of feedback takes up a lot of time. 

What’s so fascinating is that my research shows exactly the opposite. People who share open, honest, frequent feedback—and request it in return—spend way, way less time on feedback than those who have to do damage control later. 

No feedback leads to lost time, lost money, customer unhappiness & employee unhappiness. Employees feel deprived of coaching & career development. They disengage and some even leave the company. How much time does it take to fix all of that? 

Not only does more feedback take up less time, but it speeds up performance. Just as soon as people get what you’re saying and start to improve the way they do the work, they get more done in less time.

Honesty is Faster than Scripting What You Are Saying

When you get over your reluctance to talk to people about how they can improve, the words come faster. As you get more comfortable with two-way feedback, you have great conversations and discover great solutions. All of the dread and planning time goes away. Often I see people relax and start to laugh at themselves, when they see others see.

When you stay fearful about frequent feedback, you tense yourself up and freeze up your ability to think clearly. You save all of the “bad news” until you just can’t hold it back anymore and get stressed out trying to figure out what to say and how to say it.

I have actually timed people in leadership teams exchanging honest feedback about how they can improve their impact. For a seven person team, you can have massively productive feedback in 10 minutes per person—and that’s with input from all colleagues on both strengths and weaknesses to improve.

For everyday feedback on everyday topics, great feedback can take 30 seconds or less!

Jump in. Get it started. Get it going. Feel lighter, stronger, better. Check how much time it takes. Finally, you are managing your time!

Share and Enjoy!