WMBA 6633 Week 7 Written Feedback Draft Example

Written Feedback for a New Supervisor After a Near Miss at the Start-of-Shift Huddle: The Words I Will Use, the Order They Come In and Why the Draft Leaves Out the Word "Professional"

Student Name

Walden University

WMBA 6633: Personal Leadership: Mentoring and Coaching

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Written Feedback for a New Supervisor After a Near Miss at the Start-of-Shift Huddle: The Words I Will Use, the Order They Come In and Why the Draft Leaves Out the Word "Professional"

What Happened

On Tuesday, June 8, 2027, at 4:02 p.m., a reach truck backing out of aisle 14 in the Tri-County building, the composite Indiana warehouse described in earlier weeks, stopped about three feet from a temporary picker who had walked into the aisle without checking the mirror. Nobody was hurt. D. R., the second-shift supervisor I have coached since April, saw it from the dock office and ran the start-of-shift huddle twenty minutes later.

In the huddle, in front of about thirty people, he described the near miss and said, "Kayla walked right into the aisle like she owned it. If you're new, don't be Kayla." Several people laughed. Kayla, a picker in her second week through a staffing agency, looked at the floor. After the huddle, the agency's on-site coordinator told me Kayla had asked to be moved to first shift. D. R. did log the near miss correctly in the safety system before the end of his shift, with the aisle, the time and the truck number.

I was standing at the back of the huddle. I will give D. R. feedback at our Thursday session, two days later, and I wrote it out in advance so I could test the wording.

The Feedback as I Will Deliver It

"I want to talk about Tuesday's huddle, and I'll start with what went right, because it matters. You told the whole shift about a near miss within twenty minutes of it happening. A lot of supervisors would have waited for the weekly safety meeting or not mentioned it at all. You also logged it properly before you left, with the aisle and the truck number. Keep doing both of those.

"Here is the part I want you to change. When you described it, you used Kayla's name and said, 'Don't be Kayla.' People laughed, and Kayla looked at the floor. After the huddle, she asked the agency to move her to first shift. So one effect of the huddle was that we may lose a picker in her second week, and another is that the next person who has a near miss on your shift has just learned what happens when it gets reported.

"Next time, describe what happened without naming the person: 'Someone stepped into aisle 14 without checking the mirror, and a reach truck stopped three feet away.' Then say what you want everyone to do, which is to stop at the end of every aisle and check the mirror. If the person involved needs coaching, do that one on one, after the huddle.

"I'd also like you to talk with Kayla before her shift tomorrow. You don't need a script. Something like, 'I shouldn't have used your name on Tuesday. The point was the aisle, not you.' Whether she stays on second shift is up to her and the agency.

"What do you think? Is there something about Tuesday I'm missing?"

Choices Behind the Draft

Several choices shaped this draft. The first was order. I open with the two things he did well because they are real and because I want him to keep doing them, not to soften what follows. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) found in their meta-analysis that feedback interventions often reduced performance rather than improving it, especially when it pulled the recipient's attention off the work and onto his own standing. The praise is therefore tied to two behaviors, reporting fast and logging precisely, rather than to D. R. as a supervisor.

The second choice was to describe the problem through what followed rather than through a label. The draft says what he said, what people did and what Kayla asked for afterward. It does not say his comment was unprofessional, mean or a mistake. Those words invite a defense of character, and a defense would use up the session. The facts are hard to dispute, and they let him reach the judgment himself.

The third choice was to connect the comment to the outcome he cares about. D. R. wants near misses reported; he said so in our first month. The draft points out that naming Kayla works against that goal, since the next person to have a close call has just watched what happens after one is reported. Hattie and Timperley (2007) argue that feedback earns its keep by pointing forward, toward the goal and the next step, rather than only grading the last attempt. Linking the comment to his own reporting goal gives him a reason to change that is his rather than mine.

The fourth choice was to give him the exact words to use next time. A supervisor in his third month cannot always translate "describe the behavior, not the person" into a sentence at a huddle. The replacement sentence gives him something he could say the next afternoon without inventing it under pressure.

The fifth choice concerned timing. Ilgen et al. (1979) noted that feedback is more likely to be accepted when it comes soon after the behavior and from a source the recipient sees as credible. Thursday is two days after the huddle. I considered speaking to him on Tuesday night, but he had a full shift ahead, and a hurried conversation at the dock would have been heard as a reprimand. Waiting for the scheduled session keeps it inside the coaching relationship, where he expects to discuss his work.

What the Draft Leaves Out

I deliberately left out three things. The first is the word professional, which I had in an earlier version ("that wasn't professional"). It describes a standard without telling him how to meet it, and it puts him in the position of defending his character.

The second is the laughter as a separate point. It is tempting to tell him he played to the crowd, but I cannot know why he said it, and guessing at motives is the fastest way to lose a coachee's trust. If he raises it himself, we can talk about it.

The third is any mention of the staffing agency's view or of how first shift heard about it. That information would make the feedback feel like a report on him from several directions, which would make him guarded with everyone involved.

Testing the Draft Against the Week's Standard

The standard for this week is whether D. R. could act the next morning without first building a defense. I read the draft as he would and asked three questions. Could he say what to do differently tomorrow? Yes: name the behavior, not the person, and speak to Kayla. Is there a sentence he would feel he must argue with? Possibly the claim that Kayla asked to move because of him; she may have had other reasons. I have kept the sentence but phrased it as a sequence of events rather than a cause, and the closing question invites him to correct me. Does anything in it attack who he is rather than what he did? I do not think so.

London and Smither (2002) argue that how people respond to feedback depends partly on their own orientation toward it and partly on the culture around them. D. R. has so far taken feedback well when it was specific and private. The draft relies on both of those conditions. If he becomes defensive anyway, I will stop giving feedback and ask questions instead, starting with what he wanted the crew to take from the huddle, and come back to the replacement sentence once he has said it in his own words.

References

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487

Ilgen, D. R., Fisher, C. D., & Taylor, M. S. (1979). Consequences of individual feedback on behavior in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 64(4), 349-371. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.64.4.349

Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254-284. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254

London, M., & Smither, J. W. (2002). Feedback orientation, feedback culture, and the longitudinal performance management process. Human Resource Management Review, 12(1), 81-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1053-4822(01)00043-2