Make Your Follow-Ups Matter: Split Them Into Three Parts

Managers who want to improve on performance coaching should consider the follow-up conversation their secret weapon. Whether it’s regarding a long-term project or a one-off task, a good follow-up can make all the difference in terms of improvement for both teams and individuals.

To really take your feedback to the next level, follow up in three parts:

1. Celebrate success by recognizing people for their specific contributions.
2. Examine and fine-tune the modus operandi for working together.
3. Plan for next time, as best you can.

The three-part follow-up is a simple but impactful way to apply the process of regular continuous improvement directly into routine management conversations.

Celebration and acknowledgment should be the first part of the follow-up process because, without them, that may be all someone remembers about your conversation. Ignoring the positives of an employee’s performance, no matter how small, can distract from the rest of your message.

Some organizations are better at this than others. Sales organizations do a great job measuring and awarding specific goals, like dollar targets. So, they are good models of high recognition and thanks. But how do you create a culture of recognition and celebration around valuable but hard-to-measure behavior?

The first step for managers is to identify the concrete actions which reflect those ephemeral dimensions of performance. Defining what good attitude, good teamwork, or good customer service means on your team is not enough. Spell out exactly what kinds of observable actions reflect those definitions and use them as evidence in your follow-ups.

Even in the most successful work interactions and transactions, where there are lots of things that went right, there are usually some things that could have gone better.

Every time you think, “I wish I had known xyz” or “Next time we should do abc,” those are opportunities to get better. Don’t miss them. Write them down, talk them through, and use the insights to improve.

Make the after-action review your standard operating procedure, even in the case of more informal or routine follow-ups. After-action reviews can focus on how a process runs or how a whole group dynamic can function better. Or they can be tightly focused on the actions of individual participants, who are expected to answer questions such as:

• What were the intended results of my decisions and actions versus the actual results?
• What decisions and actions did I take?
• What better decisions and better actions could I have taken?

Whether things go wrong or right, use these questions as a guide for conducting your after-action review:

• What happened?
• Why did it happen?
• What went right?
• What went wrong?
• How could it go better next time?

If a deeper dive is necessary, ask:

• What were the intended results?
• What were the actual results?
• What decisions were made and actions taken?
• What better decisions could have been made and actions taken?
• Might there have been different results?

The more you do after-action reviews, the quicker and easier they become.

The final step of the three-part follow-up is to look around the corner at future tasks or projects. Where or how do you anticipate your feedback might be able to be implemented the soonest?

The main goal is to direct employees toward opportunities to make use of the feedback they’ve received, help them prepare, and hold them accountable. Otherwise, it is likely your feedback will go in one ear and out the other, no matter how valuable it may be. Establish a goal for feedback implementation and check in on your employee’s progress toward that goal. Treat meeting that goal as seriously as you would any other aspect of performance.