Shit Sandwich
[This is an excerpt from Debugging Teams, written by Ben Collins-Sussman and myself. If you like it, we suggest buying a copy for yourself. And your manager. And your team.]
Be Honest.
This doesn’t mean we’re assuming you are lying to your team, but it merits a mention because you’ll inevitably find yourself in a position where you can’t tell your team something or, even worse, you have to tell them something they don’t want to hear. A former manager of Fitz’s would tell new team members, “I won’t lie to you, but I will tell you when I can’t tell you something or if I just don’t know.”
If a team member approaches you about something you can’t share with her, it’s OK to just tell her you know the answer but can’t tell her. Even more common is when a team member asks you something you don’t know the answer to: you can tell her you don’t know. This is another one of those things that seems blindingly obvious when you read it, but many people move to a manager role and feel that if they don’t know the answer to something it proves they’re weak or out of touch. In reality, the only thing it proves is that they’re human.
Hard Feedback
Giving hard feedback is … well, hard. The first time you have to tell one of your reports that they made a mistake or didn’t do their job as well as was expected of them can be incredibly stressful. Many management texts advise that you use the “compliment sandwich” to soften the blow when delivering hard feedback. A compliment sandwich looks something like this:
”You’re a solid member of the team and one of our smartest engineers. That being said, your code is incredibly convoluted and almost impossible for anyone else on the team to understand. But you’ve got great potential and a wicked cool neck beard.”
Sure this softens the blow, but with this sort of beating around the bush most people will walk out of this meeting only thinking, “Sweet! I’ve got a wicked cool beard!” We strongly advise against using the compliment sandwich, not because we think you should be unnecessarily cruel or harsh, but because most people won’t hear the critical message, which is that something needs to change. It’s possible to employ Humility Respect and Trust (HRT) here: be kind and empathetic when delivering constructive criticism without resorting to the compliment sandwich. In fact, kindness and empathy are critical if you want the recipient to hear the criticism and not immediately go on the defensive.
Years ago, Fitz picked up a team member, Tim (Not his real name), from another manager who insisted that Tim was impossible to work with. He told Fitz that Tim never responded to feedback or criticism and instead just kept doing the same things he’d been told he shouldn’t do. Fitz sat in on a few of the manager’s meetings with Tim to watch the interaction between the manager and Tim, and he noticed that the manager made extensive use of the compliment sandwich so as not to hurt Tim’s feelings. When Fitz took Tim on his team, he sat down with him and very clearly explained that Tim needed to make some changes to work more effectively with the team. Fitz didn’t give Tim any compliments or candy-coat the issue, but just as importantly, Fitz wasn’t mean — he just laid out the facts as he saw them based on Tim’s performance with the previous team. Lo and behold, within a matter of weeks (and after a few more “refresher” meetings), Tim’s performance improved dramatically. Tim just needed very clear feedback and direction.
When providing direct feedback or criticism, your delivery is key to making sure your message is heard and not deflected. If you put the recipient on the defensive, they’re not going to be thinking of how they can change, but rather how they can argue with you to show you you’re wrong. Ben once managed an engineer we’ll call Dean. Dean had extremely strong opinions and would argue with the rest of the team about anything. It could be something as big as the team’s mission or as small as the placement of a widget on a web page; Dean would argue with the same conviction and vehemence either way, and he refused to let anything slide. After months of this behavior, Ben met with Dean to explain to him that he was being too combative. Now, if Ben had just said:
“Dean, stop being such a jerk.”
you can be pretty sure Dean would have disregarded it entirely. Ben thought hard about how he could get Dean to understand how his actions were adversely affecting the team, and he came up with the following metaphor:
Every time a decision is made, it’s like a train coming through town — when you jump in front of the train to stop it you slow the train down and potentially annoy the engineer driving the train. A new train comes by every 15 minutes, and if you jump in front of every train, not only do you spend a lot of your time stopping trains, but eventually one of the engineers driving the train is going to get mad enough to run right over you. So, while it’s OK to jump in front of some trains, pick and choose the ones you want to stop to make sure you’re only stopping the trains that really matter.
This anecdote not only injected a bit of humor into the situation, but also made it easier for Ben and Dean to discuss the effect that Dean’s “train stopping” was having on the team in addition to the energy Dean was spending on it.
So while it may seem easier for you to bend the truth or couch criticism between a couple of compliments, think about what you’re trying to communicate and how to best get the message across or change the behavior someone on yoru team.
And besides, an honest snack tastes a lot better than a shit sandwich.
[This is an excerpt from Debugging Teams, written by Ben Collins-Sussman and myself.]
