Writing discussion

For this discussion, respond to the following:

Offer a situation in which you were offered very clear feedback OR offer a situation in which you were offered fuzzy feedback. Explore the value of being clear without being cruel.

You initial post should be at least 250 words.

website: 

https://openstax.org/books/organizational-behavior/pages/8-1-performance-appraisal-systems

10
Feedback and
performance reviews

How to give feedback in English

Just about every manager has to give feedback at some stage.
Because of the nature of appraisals in business today, this
almost always involves filling in an appraisal form.
Some people dread having to do this even in their own
language, so it can be quite a daunting task to have to write in
English for cross-cultural appraisals – and send a copy to each
employee in advance, for their comments. They then have to
write these in English too.

Case study
A native English-speaking senior manager of a global multinational
company experienced unexpected problems when writing and receiving
feedback on and from his cross-cultural teams.

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132 Executive writing skills for managers

Although clearly expert in using English that would be understood by
NE speakers, he realized that some non-native English-speaking staff did
not understand his evaluations. What was more, he did not understand
some of their feedback either.
Together we identified the problem. It was that the lack of a common
parlance was causing outright confusion. Like was not being compared
with like. That is never good in business. In view of this, I devised a
glossary of English terms for feedback ratings, which you will find set
out later in this chapter.
And what was the manager’s verdict? This is worth its weight in gold.
He was able to eradicate the wide variation in writing and meanings that
had caused the problems. And he spread the message throughout the
company, wishing that this diagnostic writing tool had been identified
years ago.

When ‘fair’ might equal ‘bad’

When giving feedback in writing, non-NE speakers often
write perfectly constructed sentences – but the English words
they choose don’t always give the full and accurate meaning
of their thoughts.
For example, they may write that somebody has made a
‘good effort’ where a native English speaker may write ‘excel-
lent effort’. This difference may, at first sight, seem minimal.
But there can be an unexpected and unwanted knock-on
effect where people’s efforts or achievements are understated
– just because an evaluator chose the wrong English word.
Your staff can feel bad about it. And understandably, it can
affect performance.

When ‘quite’ might equal ‘very’

Even UK and US English can vary significantly. I remember
one American head teacher referring to the fact that he was
‘quite proud’ of a pupil’s outstanding academic achievement.

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Feedback and performance reviews 133

To a native English reader this qualification ‘quite’ can dilute
the degree of pride. The expression then appears to mean
‘slightly proud’ – although I have no doubt the teacher was
very proud indeed of his star pupil.

‘On the right track’; or have you reached your
destination?

A non-native English senior manager once wrote in an ap-
praisal of a first-class management trainee (who was a native
English speaker) that the employee was ‘on the right track’.
Their intended meaning was ‘This employee is doing well.’
But the meaning understood by the native reader was ‘This
employee is not yet where he needs to be.’
The bright young trainee felt aggrieved that his boss had
written in his performance review that he was only ‘on the
right track’. He felt that he was much further on than being
‘on track’. In his opinion, he had just about reached his
destination – and was ready for promotion.
Ironically, his boss agreed – but his English had not expressed
this. His writing had unintentionally alienated the person he
had meant to support.

Lose (or quit) your job because of the wrong
English word?

Let’s discuss this point further. What if job cuts are to be
made? All things being equal, who goes first? Should it be
the people who have arrived at their destination, ie who are
where they want to be, at the top and performing strongly, as
the company wants them to do?
Or are the people more likely to be ‘let go’ (made redundant)
those who are straggling, even struggling to ‘get there’ and, by
inference, to achieve their goals?

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134 Executive writing skills for managers

As a senior executive using English, you will understand
the significance of what I am saying. But you have probably
never seen it in a self-help book on English before. It is about
time it was – because imagine losing your job just because
your boss used the wrong English word! Or imagine feeling
like quitting because of that same wrong choice of English
word. Use of English impacts on performance and results.
In the box is another real-life example to show you the
importance of getting your English right.

Case study
In the sales and marketing division of one international business
association, an employee who excelled at her job unexpectedly quit,
giving the minimum of notice.
Why? She knew she was great at her job and expected highly positive
feedback when her boss was reviewing her performance in sales and
customer service. She knew that she was better than ‘good’ and would
have been seriously offended by being rated as ‘quite good’.
But what her boss did was even worse than this – to her way of
thinking at least. Even though he knew she was a first-class member
of staff, he did not express this to her. Instead he wrote ‘satisfactory’
for her rating in these two areas of performance. It is a correct English
word – but it was exactly the wrong word in this context.
She was incensed when she read the rating. Rather than argue her
case, she decided that enough was enough. She sought and secured a
job elsewhere, within weeks. The company lost a star employee for
entirely the wrong reasons.
What is almost worse is that that particular boss has not learnt he
should change his approach and choice of written English. So a similar
occurrence is likely to happen again in that company.

Can your company afford to risk the kind of occurrence des-
cribed? It shows how different nationalities may overstate or

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Feedback and performance reviews 135

understate things. It can help cross-cultural readers to know the
nationality of the writer. Native English speakers might look
for subtle nuances and clues from fellow native speakers, and
understand how to read between the lines. But when readers
know that non-NE writers are involved, they will not expect
the same clues and are likely to make different allowances. It
is important for your business to understand this.
Problems need not arise if you evaluate the right English for
your audience. For example, consider whether you have come
across terms that irritated or confused you. If so, write down
as many as you can think of in the box below, and learn to
avoid them. Check with colleagues to see if they feel the same
way about them.

Feedback terms that irritate or confuse

Feedback ratings: other differences

General

Ratings go from 0 to 5, where 0 = poor and 5 = excellent:

0 = poor, unsatisfactory

1 = adequate, satisfactory

2 = quite good, room for improvement, reasonably good
attempt

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136 Executive writing skills for managers

3 = good

4 = very good

5 = great, excellent, outstanding, first class, role model

Even within a single culture (take the UK as an example) there
will be a split between people who:

 are comfortable with describing first-class performance
using the words I attribute to the top rating, 5;

 are uncomfortable with so doing, and will use the words
I attribute to the second-to-top rating, 4;

 feel that ‘room for improvement’ must apply to all levels
(because we cannot ever reach perfection).

Improvement ratings

This is another area where ratings expressed in English might
help you.
The ratings go from 0 to 5, where 0 = not improving and 5
= improving strongly:

0 = not improving, no improvement

1 = not improving adequately, no satisfactory improvement,
no discernible improvement

2 = slight improvement

3 = improving adequately, satisfactory improvement

4 = improving well, good improvement, marked improvement

5 = improving strongly, strong improvement, impressive im-
provement, outstanding improvement

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Feedback and performance reviews 137

Star ratings

Here is another example of how ratings in English can confuse
when interpreted differently by different readers. Each year the
UK Audit Commission assesses the performance of UK local
authorities and the services they provide for local people. This
is called the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA),
against which a local council or other public service is given
a rating.
Now bear in mind that the ratings are all about seeing
services from the public’s perspective. Thus the ratings have
to be expressed in a way that the public can easily relate to.
The Commission decided that the following ratings would fit
the bill nicely:

4 stars (excellent)

3 stars (good)

2 stars (fair)

1 star (weak)

0 stars (poor)

This is the system that has been operating for a number of
years now and councils that achieve the 4-star rating are de-
lighted to do so. But some members of the public (their target
audience) are less proud of them than you might think. Do
you know why?
It is because a 0- to 4-star rating makes many of the target
audience think of hotel ratings, where 5 stars (or, as I write, the
bar is being raised to 6 or 7 stars) are the badge of excellence.
And whenever we write English in business, we must keep in
mind why we are writing and who our readers are. So in this
instance, target readers’ expectations might well be that, for
their councils to be excellent, they need to achieve a 5-star
rating.

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138 Executive writing skills for managers

Can you imagine how all these issues can become even more
complicated when differing cultures are involved? Every time
we write, we need to see things from our readers’ perspective
and make sure that the system we use is as foolproof as pos-
sible. Put simply: are our words in English really saying what
we mean them to say to our readers?

Your checklist for action

 Be aware that some words may have different nuances
for native English and non-native English readers: this
may have unintended effects in the sensitive area of cross-
cultural staff appraisal.

 Design a glossary of ratings terms in English for each scen-
ario where these are needed.

 Use this as common parlance in business English – to re-
duce misunderstandings and avoid causing unintentional
offence.

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