Turn feedback into progress with the OLA-AA framework

The OLA-AA framework
An example - or why journaling is key
The Performance Journal — Notion template
What are the benefits of keeping a team performance journal?
The moment to listen and share - and what to say
Action plan to improve performance (+Notion template)
What to include in the personal improvement plan?
➠ Related Notion templates
➠ Related Management Frameworks

Constructed by the author. Photos by Devasangbam & Ospanali on Unsplash.

Feedback… Ah! One of those topics that everyone talks about, many of us know the theory, but when it comes to applying it, we often fall short.

In this article, I would like to equip you with concrete tools and techniques to drive your teams’ results through careful observation, religious performance journaling and concrete feedback.

There is a lot to share, so let's get started.

Concretely, you will get four elements:

A framework to address small corrections, reinforcing strengths, or larger skill gaps [The OLA-AA framework].
One Notion template to store all observations [The Performance Journal].
A cheatsheet of tactful phrases to constructively address skills improvement with your team.
One more Notion template for skills improvement planning [Personal Improvement Plan].

The OLA-AA framework

When you offer feedback to you team members, it could be either:

→ Positive: congratulate them for a great job or performance (specific job which delivered a result, e.g. analytical graphs which helped a client renew a contract);

→ Corrections: guide your employee to the expected behaviour, correct minor errors or lack of knowledge (address our clients with their last name, letting others speak in the meeting, providing more concise written reports);

→ Skill gaps: lack of specific skills which may cause low performance or inefficient work (scoping a project, doing product demos, engaging the audience during training facilitation).

When you deal with praise or small corrections, your involvement is quick, supportive, and short. The steps to follow are: observing the situation as objectively as possible, listening to the point of view of your employee, and addressing the feedback you wanted to share [= OLA]

When the need is to close a skill gap, the time investment and preparation on both your and the employee's side, is more substantial. Start by making observations, listening, addressing the point, then ask your report to propose an action plan (or suggesting one for junior employees), give them time to apply it, and continue observing if the performance has improved. [OLA-AA]

OLA-AA wheel. Authors' creation.

An example - or why journaling is key

Diego has worked with you for 6 months. There are 5 people at the project status meeting and Diego is the project lead. He comes prepared with an agenda and starts rolling. After 15 minutes, only Diego has spoken. He asks a question about the tasks but no one volunteers to answer before the awkward 5 seconds of pause. He then interrupts one of the participants (Maya) only a few seconds after she starts speaking.

Clearly, Diego is dominating the meeting.

What should you do?

a) jump in to give the word back to Maya;b) make a joke about his dominant style to ease the situation a bit;c) record your observations & address them privately shortly after the meeting.

While answer b) can seem acceptable or desired in close-knit teams or more informal cultures, as a manager, try to avoid humour when addressing performance gaps (no matter how big or small they are). The safest option here is answer c).

Write it down.

Every time you observe a behaviour, or gather feedback about your team from others, record your observations, write them down. I cannot stress this more.

What should you write? Explain the situation objectively, without any emotion. Write down what happened, who was involved, what was the result.

Include a section with the actions you want to take in the future. Define a time span on when you want to address the situation. For praise and small corrections, act quickly for the best results.

For longer-term skills improvement, you may find it more reasonable to gather more examples with the goal to better help your team member with concrete situations.

The Performance Journal — Notion template

I adore using templates as they keep me organised and guide me what to do in specific tasks or situations.

To record observations on the performance of my team and help me with providing concrete, impartial feedback, I use the Team Performance Journal.

The Team Performance Journal.

What are the benefits of keeping a team performance journal?

We forget more than we wish ⇒ help your memory by writing down situations you can use as examples. How many times have you heard your manager say "I don't remember exactly what happened but…"? Don't be that person:)
Our memory gets altered by future & past events ⇒ our memory is simply unreliable. Our memories are a collection of neural networks which interact with a lot of neural activity and get altered with time. Fascinating topic but let's stay focused here —stay true to reality by writing it down.
Respectful for your employees ⇒ by keeping track of what happened, you show that you are a caring manager who pays attention to them and cares about their development. You show respect by providing them with a concrete and detailed recall of the situation where the error / success had happened. It helps them relate, go back to the context in their mind, and give them ideas on what they can improve (or repeat in case of praise).
Objectivity ⇒ when you look at the past quarter / semester, by rereading your journal, you get a clear picture on the performance of each person, and you can even draw comparisons between different team members. We often fall prey to the recency bias when evaluating performance and base our judgement on the most recent events. Journaling helps you avoid this.

If you are not a Notion user, you can build a similar system on a Gsheet, Word document, or even Notes. Just write it down :)

⚠️ Be very cautious to never share this document or leave it in a shared space. These are your private observations and without context, or the right wording, they can cause a lot of damage.

Now that you have recorded the situation and drafted a plan on how to address it, you should make sure you fully understand the situation from the point of view of your employee before giving advice which might be irrelevant.

The moment to listen and share - and what to say

You have noticed a behaviour of one of your team players you want to address to help improve their performance. You have noted it down. Now it's time to address it and share what is your expectation.

When you deal with praise or small corrections, your involvement is quick, supportive, and short. The steps to follow are: observing the situation as objectively as possible, listening to the point of view of your employee, and addressing the feedback you wanted to share [= OLA]

Your preparation should be proportional to the gap between the observed and the expected behaviour.

It's time to listen.

Golden rule in every life situation, including giving feedback: do NOT assume you have the full picture.

Take time with, in private, to find out how your employee lived the situation, combine this with your observations and then share your thoughts.

Either schedule a separate meeting, go get a cup of tea, or carve some time during your weekly 1:1 meeting.

I love the advice from Kim Scott's Radical Candor “Walk, don't sit. When planning a difficult conversation, try taking a walk instead of sitting and talking. When you're walking, the emotions are less on display and less likely to start resonating in a destructive way”.

You choose the best moment, and format. Make sure to listen (attentively), don't interrupt, take notes if necessary. Don't make an opinion before they give you their side of the story. Rephrase what they said to show you have listened.

“Hi, Diego, I wanted to debrief the status meeting on Friday. What did you think?”

If your employee doesn't share any worries or problems, you can probe a bit while still trying to get them to a realisation that something was off → “I felt the mood was down and others’ didn't participate”… and let them continue the conversation.

You can use different constructions, to finally reach an assembly of:

[When this happened], [I observed / saw], which [had an impact on something]. I wish [clarify expectations]

9 out of 10 situations, the person in front will switch to defensive mode as you are addressing a situation in which they didn't perform at their best.

Perfectly natural and also avoidable.

The four golden rules to proactively avoid the other person getting into defence mode:

1️⃣ Be very concrete and precise.

2️⃣ Talk about situations, and not personalities.

3️⃣ Show you have heard and understood their point of view.

4️⃣ Say how changing this behaviour can help them in the future.

Instead of saying “You were not funny”, say “The joke you shared was perceived as offending".

Instead of “You were rude”, say “During the meeting on Friday, you interrupted your colleagues three times and they couldn't share their opinion”.

Instead of “You disrespected the client”, say “The way you phrased the sentence sounded belittling for the Head of Operations”.

Instead of “You should show more respect”, say “I wish the way you phrase the conclusions is more inclusive and shows gratitude to the work of the entire team".

You got it - we are talking about the specific situation, their work, what the person DID, not what the person IS.

When you are dealing with correcting small behaviours, once you have shared the feedback (or praise) clearly, with concrete examples, make sure your direct reports understood your intention and words. Normally, at this stage the situation is solved.

If, however, you are addressing a situation, which deals with a specific skill gap, continue to the last two steps of the OLA-AA: invite your report to make an improvement action plan.

Action plan to improve performance (+Notion template)

The goal of the action plan is to avoid the problematic situation, improve the skills of your team member, and ultimately - drive results.

At this stage, you had already shared your observations and clarified your expectations, outlining the gap between the two.

It's time to think about the HOW, WHAT, BY WHEN of the improvement stage.

Ideally, ask you direct report to suggest an action plan they will implement to improve their skills. Making them draft the plan significantly increases accountability and increases the chances of the plan being followed. It also shows you their level of investment and eagerness to improve.

However, there are several situations where your team member will not be autonomous in proposing a plan:

a) Junior team members: in the first years of your career it's just not clear what can be done to improve your competences and that is fine → as a manager, go ahead and suggest a clear, actionable plan for your junior team member to put in place. Always precise the deadline.

b) Feedback not accepted: if the feedback you shared does not resonate with the person on the other side of the table, they won't go ahead and offer ways to change; or if they do, it will be to make you happy and leave them alone. But the action plan won’t be implemented. It's easy to spot when the feedback is not received, when the person switches off to defence mode, or worse, when they adopt a negative attitude and disregard your comments. In that case, suggest to stop the meeting there, ask them to reflect on the situation, and meet again in a few days when the emotions have calmed down.

In an ideal world, you should encourage your direct report to come up with the plan, as the learning will be most impactful if they were the driver behind the proposal. When you have unexperienced, or less autonomous employees in front of you, go ahead and suggest what actions they can take to improve the situation.

What to include in the personal improvement plan?

Keep it simple - 3-4 realistic actions are attainable and ways to follow.

While it is important to write down the improvement goals, a long and complex document can be too stressful for the employee, especially if you dealing with a one-off situation.

Clarify what is the expected level, using behaviour vocabulary to be concrete and clear. Point out 3-4 specific actions which are reachable, and include potential support from you, or others in the team.

Finally, define check-ins every months, or every two weeks, to follow-up on progress.

Whether we are new to management, or a seasoned team lead, addressing (low) performance topics is a stressful topic, often with a difficult situation to address. What I have seen (and experienced first-hand) is we try so hard to improve skills, that we forget everything else that is going great.

Remember that by the mere fact that you are reading this, you are on a great trajectory - you are trying to be better for your team, and to make sure you know how to help them. I hope I gave you a few keys and good luck with the journey!

To recap, when you want to turn feedback into action, and the action - into results, keep these golden rules ⇒