Affinity/Similarity bias

People resonate with people that look or behave like them. This bias can be damaging when assessing performance in a coaching scenario because you might be less likely to empathize with colleagues who look or think differently than you do.

Expedience bias

Some aspects of a person’s work are easier to measure than others. For example, you might judge a receptionist by how quickly they can check in a queue of people on a busy night without considering the quality of check ins (Were the members recognised? Was payment information correct? Did they give the guests relevant hotel information). Therefore, it’s important to dig deep to uncover the true quality of a person's work before making judgement. 

Recency bias

When monitoring performance over a longer period of time, being bias-free can be a challenge. For example, a new starter might have had a particularly excellent day, which might prompt you to think they are ready to fly solo, but if they have had a rocky week, they may not be as ready as you think they are. Likewise another new starter may have had a difficult day for whatever reasons, but crushed it the rest of the month. That’s why, while coaching must be continuous and in the moment, overall performance assessment must encompass a larger time frame.

Contrast effect

As your team grows and you coach more colleagues, the contrast effect becomes more present. The contrast effect posits that if you coach a superstar and an average employee in rapid succession, that average employee might seem worse than they actually are, in comparison. This form of unconscious bias can hurt team members who may have a hard time discussing their work or opening up to their colleagues.

Halo/Horns effect

Humans are complex. All humans have traits seen as negative and positive. And depending on which attributes you notice first, you might be making an unfair judgment on the whole person, even if that assumption isn’t valid. So you might see that a person is coming to work looking disheveled and assume that that person doesn’t care about their job, even if they were just having a bad day — like we all do sometimes.

Some Tips For Constructive Feedback

Establish Trust Continuously

If you are working with someone regularly and know you will at some point need to give feedback to them, whether as part of your job duties (as a manager or supervisor) or simply due to the nature of your work together (as team members or colleagues), it's important to establish an open, trusting relationship with them. Having a baseline of trust will help set the tone of your future conversations, and will both help you deliver your feedback, and help them accept it and put your suggestions to use. It's very difficult to accept feedback or criticism from someone you do not trust to have your best interests at heart - you want the receiver to truly know that, first and foremost, you recognise their abilities, believe in their potential, and appreciate their work. This means they'll be more likely to view your feedback as constructive, and will further open communication channels to make this kind of exchange even easier and more productive in the future.

Balance the Positive and the Negative

When giving constructive criticism, it's important to make sure you're presenting a balanced perspective, whether your feedback is ultimately positive or negative. This is more obvious when it comes to negative feedback - while you shouldn't have to feel like you must paint a picture that's different from the reality of the situation, especially if you have major concerns about the work or behaviours being discussed, it's helpful to be able to point out some positives in that person's attitude or output. For example, if a specific project doesn't meet your expectations, you could frame the conversation by saying how you've been impressed with the individual's work in the past, which is why you know that this could be improved. Again, you want to be truthful - don't mislead someone into thinking their performance is better than it actually is - but giving someone a few positives to help motivate them can go a long way.

When it comes to positive constructive criticism, you want to make sure that you give the person you're addressing some things to think about or work on, to help them feel like they still have room to grow and surpass expectations. If a piece of work is excellent, simply providing a few suggestions, such as "have you thought about adding in information about X?" or "perhaps this point on Y could be expanded to include some of the details that emerged in last week's meeting," or even giving ideas on ways the project could be built upon in future work, can be very helpful. You should also tell them what it was about the work that was so good - be specific! High-performing individuals tend to like having goals to strive for, so simply telling someone something is great without giving them something new to work towards or what elements they can focus on replicating in the future can be frustrating for them.

Observe, Don't Interpret

Don't assign meaning or intent to someone else's actions until you've had a chance to hear what they have to say. Present issues as things you are observing, and give them the opportunity to explain their perspective.

Be Specific

One of the best ways to give constructive feedback is to focus on specifics. Telling someone that their work needs improvement, but not giving details on what exactly is lacking or how it might be fixed, isn't helpful to anyone - the individual won't know what you're looking for, so they'll be frustrated and you most likely will not get the results you hoped for. Again, bringing in both positives and negatives can be key here. This goes for positive feedback, too: instead of just saying "great job" or "nice work," give a meaningful compliment that shows that you really took the time to observe their work and that you truly appreciate their contribution

Don't Make it Personal

When giving constructive criticism, it's important to remember to distinguish a person from their actions. Focus on the issue at hand, whether it's a pattern or performance on a specific project, without making broader claims about who they are (for example, telling someone that you noticed some errors in a recent setup, so they should take the time to double check each setting going forward versus telling them that they lack attention to detail or are careless). If it feels like a personal attack, the individual will be more likely to shut down and lose trust in you than to listen to what you have to say.

Provide Feedback Consistently

Obviously, frequency will vary depending on how much interaction you have with the individual you are giving constructive criticism to, but making feedback a regular part of your conversations and meetings will go a long way.  If you raise an issue for the first time in the PDR, the employee will feel blind sided, wonder why the issue was not raised before and trust you less moving forwards.