An MSP company will be more operationally sound should regular feedback be incorporated into interactions with your team. Everybody should have some feedback given at intervals. Whether those intervals are daily, weekly, or monthly is up to you. But don’t neglect this under the auspices of an assumption against feedback effectiveness.
You’re not always going to be giving bad news, and if nothing else, regular feedback establishes a relationship between you and those on your team. Following are several components of effective feedback worth considering as you develop such a strategy:
Purpose
Your MSP company can’t approach clients you’re trying to convert without a purpose behind that sales pitch. When you’re giving feedback to team members, there is a sales pitch element at play. Accordingly, you need to anticipate employee reactions and drive the interview toward something that has a concrete purpose. Identify what you want to see changed, communicate that, and figure out how to get your employee back on track.
Fact Orientation
Use facts to make your case. You’ll have some employees who are simply unaware of an obvious solution, and some who are creatively shirking duties. No finger-pointing is necessary. Facts paint a concrete picture, so use this medium to help get your team members mentally aligned with you.
Controlling Yourself, Creating Improvement Opportunities, Asking for Change
You can control your reactions. When giving feedback, expect team members to respond in ways that aren’t always mellow. Don’t feed the fire by reciprocating. Additionally, provide them a solution to the feedback you’ve given, and ensure you ask them to make a change in a way that isn’t open to interpretation.
An MSP company needs to continuously refine itself to remain competitively viable, and relevant to the market. Feedback helps do this internally and externally. Have a fact-oriented purpose behind feedback interactions with your team, control yourself, show them how to change, and ask for that change. This will help make feedback effective.