A new type of workout could be on your New Year’s resolution list. Your employee just did a great job and the only word that comes to mind to congratulate them is… “Good job”? A program has been developed by the start-up nimble bubble to help managers who lack inspiration for feedback.
In an era where dictator bosses are no longer popular, how do you approach the employee who hasn’t reached his weekly goal? What words are acceptable in 2023? And what phrases will motivate the teams?
“It’s not easy to give feedback. Some managers delay doing so or do so clumsily, observes nimble bubble founder Sophie Gadoury. It can be so stressful that managers will decide not to give any at all, even when it comes to feedback positive. »
“We are stressed before giving it, while we give it and we don’t really know what impact we had,” she continues. The interview ends, and we imagine that the employee is already running to complain to a colleague. »
Sophie Gadoury comes from an environment where the feedback Obviously. During her years as a volleyball player and coach, then a master’s student in sports psychology, giving feedback was far from an issue.
The vast majority of a coach’s role is to give feedbackwhereas in the workplace, it’s quite a challenge, whether in person or in writing.
Sophie Gadoury, founder of nimble bubble
Train like Olympians
Project manager within the Canadian Olympic Committee, Sophie Gadoury accompanied the Olympic teams in Sochi and Rio. It was inspired by the training of top athletes to create its training center for feedback.
“What interested me in sport were the behaviors between humans that optimize well-being as well as performance. I wanted to know if it was possible to reproduce the same thing in the world of work. »
After some experience in human resources in different organizations and a collaboration with the Order of Certified Human Resources Advisors, Sophie Gadoury felt ready to launch her web application.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY NIMBLE BUBBLE
The nimble bubble app offers managers scenarios to practice giving good feedback.
Managers, executives, leaders who enroll in the program receive a two-minute workout per day for a month. This is a scenario, and the manager must choose the right feedback proposal. The participant can try again until he finds the correct answer.
How to announce a decision that is not unanimous? Encourage an employee who lacks self-confidence? Managing the emotions of a disgruntled senior management team?
It’s not so much whether the answer is right or wrong. What helps the manager is to know, if I have not given the right feedback, what kind of impact I’m going to have on the employee. There is a great awareness with the explanations that follow the choice of feedback. They guide the manager in the right direction.
Sophie Gadoury, founder of nimble bubble
By training for a few minutes each day, the manager learns specific notions and develops skills that he can apply immediately during the day, explains the entrepreneur. “Regular training is more effective than a one-off two-hour training,” she says. It allows you to sharpen your reflexes and develop the right feedback behaviors so that they become natural. »
To refine her program, Sophie Gadoury surrounded herself with three specialists in the science of motivation and university professors, Geneviève A. Mageau, Jacques Forest and Joëlle Carpentier.
Nimble bubble dreams of becoming the Duolingo of feedback and eventually offer training to all employees, not just bosses. In a less hierarchical world of work, interactions are mainly between colleagues, she points out.
With the silent resignation, it is the right time to act with benevolence on the teams, believes Sophie Gadoury. The entrepreneur is convinced that the world of work can become an environment filled with meaning, development and empathy.
Train yourself
Here is an example of a training exercise provided by nimble bubble:
Benoît writes far too many details in his emails. This makes them too long and the rest of the team misses key information hidden among less relevant details. In your opinion, this is an important point to improve for the next quarter.
Your weekly meeting begins with him; what feedback do you give it to him?
HAS. “To write engaging emails, maybe it helps to put a maximum of three bullet points in “list” format. Otherwise challenge yourself that the email does not exceed 100 words can be thefun to guide us through it. »
B. “Your emails are currently not working Benoît; you have to change techniques. I trust that you are able to improve them; do you think you could spell them differently please? »
vs. “All the details are included when you email, and often too many. As we have talked about in the past, their length causes some frustration for James, because he is so busy that he cannot read them all. »
A) Excellent, you made the right choice feedbackbecause Benoît has different clear leads informing him of what he can choose to apply to improve and move towards his goal of concise and engaging emails.
B) If Ben writes his e-mails a certain way, that may mean that he doesn’t know how to write them differently. Instead of mentioning what has not been done well or asking him to improve them without helping him, I invite you to try again to turn your attention to the objective to be achieved and the possible solutions to achieve it. arrive.
C) Ben feels guilty for having taken too much of James’ time in the past and is worried that he won’t be able to fix it despite his current efforts. Would you like to try again to find out how to support Benoît in reaching his goal with your feedback ?