Open Door Policy, Closed Lip Reality? (Part II)
Why don’t employees share honest feedback? Fear. Millions of dollars of harm must be at stake before employees overcome fear for their careers.
A few weeks ago, we reported that firms that break down barriers to honest feedback achieve a significant advantage over competitors. We posed the question, “Why do employees withhold honest (negative) feedback?” The first commenter responded with an incisive answer: “Fear.”
Fear is a particularly powerful inhibitor. Many employees are afraid to share negative feedback because they think it may harm their careers or reflect poorly on them.
CEB research reveals that, in monetary terms, millions of dollars must be at stake for employees to overcome their fear. We recently surveyed more than 100 of our clients and asked them to estimate the amount of harm that would have to be present to share honest (negative) feedback at risk to their careers:
- 59% estimated that more than $1million worth of harm to the company would have to be at stake for employees to share honest (negative) feedback.
- 29% estimated that more than $10million would have to be at stake.
Even though fear is a big barrier, it is surmountable. Recent CEB research found that some companies are able to significantly reduce fear of speaking up among employees.
What do you think companies should do differently to successfully reduce the fear? Please share your insights in the comments field below.
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5 Responses to “Open Door Policy, Closed Lip Reality? (Part II)”
Trust is part of this. No matter how graceful you are with employees, how fair, generous with compensation, the profit motive will overcome all factors and the employees will be the victim not the company. If employees do not trust their employers or immediate supervisors (there are degrees of trust) honest feedback will not exist.
Comment made on April 21st, 2010 at 7:48 amWhat the leader hears when he / she receives negative feedback is directly related to the emotional intelligence of the leader. If the leader has a high emotional intelligence then he / she would listen to the feedback with the intention of using it to improve the organisation. The employee would be more inclined to share. However, if the leader with low emotional intelligence listens to honest feedback with the intention of defending their position and hearing what he / she wants to hear then the message to the employee would be don’t even bother. The leadership of the organisations comprise of people. Emotional people. This is very often an integral part that is overlooked. So when we hire leaders or evaluate reasons why the open door policy isn’t working we seldom look to the emotional reasons. We conveniently design a new process to assist employees submitting feedback and when this too fails we blame the designer of the process. How we improve the emotional intelligence of the organisation will directly impact the success of any open door policy.
Comment made on April 21st, 2010 at 1:52 pmI remember my dad telling me that people who point out your mistakes are the people who care about you and your well being. But after 15 years in the work life, I do not find that to be the case always. These are some of my thoughts
Comment made on April 21st, 2010 at 4:40 pm1. Lack of trust: Building trust depends on both individuals and the organization. Individuals have to take steps every time to show they care about someone’s development and provide constructive feedback during opportune time. Why timing is important because it shows that you are not trying to oneupman your colleague.
From org stand point there should be incentive in developing people and individual reviews should involve people development as one of the grading criteria. During the review each one should be required to provide documentation from mentees as to how you helped other achieve their potential. Only then you will have vested interest and your growth should dependant more and more on being mentor as you grow through the ladder.
2. Leaders should showcase trusting behavior, if they make comments behind their peers back that puts the trust in their org and their peers org back a couple of steps. To overcome such behavior, each leader should become a mentor to people in their peer’s org and similar to above should have their reviews tied to people development.
3. I believe in the apprenticeship model that Ram Charan mentions in his book “Leadership at all Levels”. If your reviewer is someone other than your boss, say a mentor , who gathers all the 360 feedback in regular intervals and helps you navigate those with your development plans, you will get better feedback and development.
4. We individuals need to realize that people development is part of our work, as Jack Welch mentioned, as you grow through the ladder it should become bigger and bigger portion of you daily job. Jack Welch spent 40% of his time mentoring other leaders and in teaching.
There are few individuals who adopt Einstein’s advice — “Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.” Successful workers learn very quickly not to be honest at work because leaders reward people who reinforce positive results rather than those who point out areas of concern. Additionally, communication from leaders is generally guarded and less than open even if it is honest. When leaders model open and honest communication, employees will follow suit.
Comment made on April 22nd, 2010 at 8:43 aminteresting. i would go out on a limb and say that if success is defined as workers who have the highest regard of managment, then yes… they become the managers personal praise team b/c it makes the manager feel good to have such awesoem support. but beware. when new leadership comes, it is those people who squeal the loudest behind closed doors b/c they are trying to leverage themselves to keep their job. self checks are important so that you can live in reality and keep growing personally and professionally… if you are into that kind of stuff [growth].
Comment made on December 28th, 2010 at 4:23 pmLeave a Comment