The CIO as a (Really Bad) Role Model

How to improve morale: drive out the people whose morale is lowest. NOT!<br><br>Especially in a situation where morale is bad, managers need to realize that their staff may well blame their managers for their misery, and that in some cases those feelings of blame may come out in less-than-amiable ways. Ask for feedback, and you may not like what you hear.<br><br>In reality, feedback is just feedback. Whether it's negative or positive depends on how you choose to receive it. Even unpleasantly worded missives may contain useful information -- however hard it may be to read them.<br><br>Thanks for an interesting (as always!) post.../Fiona Charles

Fiona, thanks! "Feedback is just feedback" -- what a quotable quote that is. And so worth remembering. It's interesting the way people tend to reject or dismiss feedback when they view it as negative, but readily accept it when it's positive. Yet, both ways, it's just feedback. And in both instances, how you choose to receive it (to quote you) makes a difference. <br><br>Apparently, though, it never occurred to this CIO that he might receive negative feedback -- even though it was the rampant employee negativity, in the form of poor morale, that led to the effort to make things better in the first place and thus his presentation to the troops. <br><br>It also strikes me that people are rarely educated in how to deliver feedback, so sometimes their well-meaning feedback comes across as harsh when they don't intend it that way. There's an art to giving feedback -- a topic for a future blog, methinks. Thanks for the inspiration! ~Naomi

Oh - this is one of my pet peeves for leaders. I have seen more than one great leader fail (and fall) when they ask for feedback, then refuse to listen to it because it doesn't come in the format they prefer (carefully phrased, positive, uplifting). If you ask for feedback, you have to sift through the feedback, in whatever form it comes. Or - as you and Fiona have pointed out - you miss valuable good stuff. Feedback is information. The emotions are also information. It's all information to be sifted and sorted.<br><br>Yes, the persons delivering feedback can influence how their feedback is received. But when you stand up and ask for it, you really don't get to rail at those who give it to you, unvarnished. Especially when you are the one in the position of power and authority, the leader.

Lori, thanks for your comments. Sadly, we have both seen this sort of situation too often -- managers who want to receive requested feedback only when it is, as you described, carefully phrased, positive and uplifting. Your point about the importance of the emotion in the feedback is also key. The very fact that someone is upset is data, and data that the leader should be interested in. Actually, feedback should be taken in and treated seriously even if it hasn't been explicitly requested by the person in charge. As you point out, that's the person who has the power and authority. ~Naomi

The CIO should also be watchful for what ISN'T said. Sometimes NO feedback is very telling. I recently worked for a company with a very toxic, negative working environment. The employees couldn't provide any positive feedback about the company, and they wouldn't provide negative feedback. People had a way of "disappearing" without any warning. (I said they were being banished "to the cornfield" a la Twilight Zone). Feedback is important, as you stated so well in your suggested email messge.

Rose, that's a particularly valuable comment -- that the CIO should be aware of what's not being said. I think some people in leadership positions confuse no feedback with "all is well," when (as your experience demonstrates) it could mean just the opposite. All the more reason why a CIO (or other leader) should proactively solicit feedback and treat all of it as valuable information, whether positive, negative or simply useful observations. ~Naomi