I have always treated my employees as friends. Is this wrong?

I have always treated my employees as friends but now I’m finding it hard not to criticise the way they do their job. Help!

For a good chunk of my career I found it hard to criticise those who worked for me, and when I say criticise I do mean the helpful form of the word rather than the schoolyard bully type.

I hated being critical so I tended to avoid “giving feedback” until whatever it was that needed criticising had irked me so much that my “feedback” would all come out in one great big uncontrolled verbal dump; much to the surprise – and I hate to say distress – of the recipient.

Then a few years ago a wise old business owner, David, gave me some useful tips for giving feedback to staff. I dug them out last week when a business owner friend of mine related her dilemma.

Louise has about 15 employees in her business and her philosophy has always been to treat her employees as friends. She thought that the “friendship” with her employees would ensure their loyalty to the business. The trouble is that she now has employees that are very loyal to the business but who aren’t crash hot at delivering on the job they are paid to do. Louise was worried that if she criticised her employees it would ruin the friendship.

I thought of David’s tips. I’ve used them consistently since he shared them with me and, rather than harm my relationships with employees, it has enhanced them. I shared them with Louise and I’m sharing them with you here:

1. Before you start, reframe the concept of “criticism” in your own mind, turning it from delivering a negative reprimand to sharing a helpful learning. I still remind myself of this often.
2. Preface your criticism with a warm introduction, such as “Can I give you some feedback?” or “Can I show you a better/quicker/neater way of doing that?”
3. Talk straight: don’t beat around the bush or hide your criticism in compliments. This one was a biggie for me. I realised that I hid my feedback in so much fluff – a tendency I blame on my English heritage – that it was impossible for anyone to work out what message I was trying to deliver.
4. Give regular feedback. If you give feedback in little bite-sized pieces and do it often it won’t feel like such a big issue for either you or your employee.

Finally, of course, practice makes, well it makes you much better. I have most definitely improved over the past few years, but I would never use the word perfect.

Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses:Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business”  and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).