In other words, it\u2019s not that we\u2019re merely scared of giving feedback. It\u2019s that we don\u2019t think anything will come of the feedback when we voice it. Futility, more than fear, is why employees don\u2019t give feedback or choose not to speak up to their bosses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few weeks ago, a friend told me he was thinking about quitting his job. He said it was because of communication breakdowns between him and his boss. Small moments of poor communication had snowballed into a deeper, gnawing frustration for my friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked if he\u2019d mentioned these moments to his boss. Maybe his boss had no idea these were problems in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend acknowledged that this was most-likely true. But then he said this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven if I did speak up, I don\u2019t think anything would change.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n His words struck me. I had almost forgotten\u200a\u2014\u200aI had felt the exact same way a few years ago.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before KYC, I was an employee at another company. Just like my friend, I was unhappy at work. But just like my friend, I didn\u2019t tell my boss about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why? Part of it was due to personality. I\u2019m an introvert<\/a>. I didn\u2019t want to come across as a \u201cknow-it-all\u201d to my boss. Another part of it was fear. I was worried that my boss would interpret my feedback as a personal attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But those weren\u2019t the biggest reasons holding me back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest reason I didn\u2019t give my boss feedback is I believed that even if I did speak up, nothing would change<\/strong>. I believed my boss wouldn\u2019t do<\/em> anything with my feedback. No action would be taken. And if nothing was going to change, what was the point of me saying anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend had felt the exact same way. This sense of futility is why we both didn\u2019t speak up. And, as mentioned before, we\u2019re not the only ones to have felt like this (1<\/a>,2<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re a manager, business owner, or CEO, the most important thing you can do is act on the feedback your employees give you. <\/strong>Not doing that as a common bad manager mistake that make people quit. After all, that\u2019s why an employee is giving you feedback in the first place\u200a\u2014\u200athey simply want action to be taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now I\u2019m not saying that you should blindly appease every request that an employee makes. But you have to start somewhere. If you want an open, transparent company culture and a happy workplace, you can\u2019t just talk<\/em> about it. You have to act<\/em> in an open and transparent way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the day, acting on feedback is how we encourage our employee feedback more openly. If we focus on what we do<\/em> more than what we say<\/em>, more employees will see that speaking up is not futile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I think back to a few years ago when I was an unhappy employee, this action was all I needed to feel comfortable speaking up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And for my friend thinking about quitting his job, that\u2019s all he needs too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/blog.knowyourteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/92a91-1yg27jqqbjpotlcwnixtbuw.png\")
So how do you help your employees overcome this sense of futility?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to avoid the typical bad manager mistake and and avoid good people to quit:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How do treat the people in your company who do<\/em> choose to speak up? Amanda Lannert, the CEO of Jellyvision<\/a>, told me that during an all-hands meeting, she publicly thanked an employee that gave feedback. Even though she didn\u2019t agree with the employee feedback, she wanted him to know his voice was heard and his feedback was not in vain, helping maintain the employee engaged.<\/li>
If you receive a piece of feedback that isn\u2019t practical<\/a> or doesn\u2019t align with the company\u2019s vision, tell your employees that. Expose your decision-making process. If you don\u2019t, employees will wonder, \u201cWhat ever happened to that idea I suggested?\u201d They\u2019ll assume that you\u2019re not open to receiving new ideas, and they\u2019ll hesitate to bring up feedback.<\/li>
Acting on feedback\u200a\u2014\u200ano matter how small<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200ais the most powerful way to encourage employees to give feedback and to contribute to employee engagement. For example, Dave Bellous<\/a>, the co-CEO of Yellow Pencil<\/a>, learned that his company needed a new phone service. So he promptly changed their phone service, and saw an immediate shift in his team\u2019s morale and workplace happiness. This one unassuming change yielded huge results. All because he acted on something small quickly.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n