Tell Your Boss Anything

https://www.tellyourbossanything.com/

by maxcameron • 14 years ago

41 49 14 years ago

empika4• 14 years ago

It is a shame that so many people are unable to have conversations with their boss as adults, no matter how good/bad the feedback is.

Email is never a good way to have difficult conversations. Too many wires get crossed and meaning is extracted where there was no intent.

It would be nice if there were some guides on the page about how to have these conversations in person. 'Crucial Conversations' is a great starting place http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-...

CoughlinJ• 14 years ago

Speaking as someone who's had his "tone" addressed in emails, and the survivor of many a blunt conversation with my boss, the best way to get a point across is to just state the facts. Don't be pompous, don't feign ignorance, or try to blame others, just spit it out, and have whatever you need to tell them written or typed out on a piece of paper. The last thing is to be respectful. Even if you don't respect them, they ARE in a position above you, and that DOES mean something, not only to them, but to others as well. Keep it civil, state the facts, and never apologize (unless you're the one who messed up. If that is the case, do so sincerely and politely).

alan_cx• 14 years ago

Assuming this feed back is about giving the boss bad news about him or the company, and not about fessing to to a personal error:

You missed one very crucial bit of advice: Don't do in public. The split second your boss feels humiliated or under threat it is only a matter time. This also gives you an added bonus, your boss will trust you and believe you have his/her back. You have "confided" rather than exposed. Their egos love that BS. In many or even most cases, they will owe you one.

empika4• 14 years ago

Yup, respect, empathy and congruence.

Be respectful, understand that it might be hard to hear your feedback and try and word it in the most direct way possible.

I think i might be missing another thing, but I forget. Those three things will get you far though.

Not sure that I agree with them being in a position 'above' you though. You are both adults. They might have more responsibility than you, but that does not mean that they are 'above' you. I treat every single person in the company I work for as an equal, from the junior consultants to the MD and chairman of the board. I also expect them to treat me the same.

lsc• 14 years ago

as a boss, the 'respect' and 'above' thing kinda bother me. I mean, it /is/ my company, but on the other hand, if I didn't think you were good at something, I wouldn't be spending my money on you. (I mean, sometimes an employee who is very good at one thing starts telling me how to run something that I don't think they know very much about, and that can be irritating, but eh.) If you are a boss and you are hiring non-interns that aren't better than you in their areas of expertiece, you are incompitent.

I mean, I'm not a very good boss; I think of most of my relationships the way you think of contractors. which is wrong for most people, but personally? I get really uncomfortable with this idea that I'm "above" an employee.

On the other hand, I think this actively contributes to me being a bad boss. A whole lot of people really like the idea that the company is a family or something, rather than it just being a mutually benficial relationship. I mean, if you are part of the company, and I own the company.... that has some (i think) disturbing implications. If it's just a mutually benifical relationship, on the other hand? that seems much less disturbing to me. But many people are more comfortable with the former. (and yes, many of those people like to see the company as more of a co-op where everyone has ownership, and that's another area where I'm a bad boss. I'm not any better at pretending that other people own what is mine than I am at pretending to own other people. I have enough experience with real co-ops and communes to want to avoid that sort of thing.)

wizawuza• 14 years ago

What if you're the only person that reports to your boss?

irishcoffee• 14 years ago

What kind of answer do you expect to this question? Honestly, I'm curious.

unohoo• 14 years ago

I couldnt help LOL even though you might have asked the question sincerely.

prezjordan• 14 years ago

I thought about developing a piece of software for businesses to use in-house for employees to ask questions, anonymously. In the end, however, I decided that even though you would be "anonymous," there's a lot of guessing of who is actually asking the questions (especially new hires, people who ask a lot of questions, etc).

happiily15• 14 years ago

The point you raise is a good one and it's also what wizawuza mentions. Anonymity is increased the larger the crowd size. One way we're seeing Tell Your Boss Anything used is for all feedback to be directed to the CEO instead of to an individual manager.

jsherry• 14 years ago

360 feedback is good. But if you want to use this to remain anonymous, then this excerpt from their "Promises" section doesn't instill the greatest level of confidence:

"If you do not use insults, verbal abuse or foul language, we will do everything in our power to keep your identity hidden. In other words, don't be mean and we'll have your back."

happiily15• 14 years ago

Can you help us improve the clarity of this part of our promises? Obviously, we don't want our service to be used to present hateful, threatening or abusive messages and providing a user doesn't do any of those things, we will do everything in our power to prevent their identify from being revealed.

We welcome your feedback.

Spooky23• 14 years ago

Simple: We will not reveal any details regarding your identity unless we are compelled to do so by law.

Once you decide to be the arbiter of what constitutes abuse or foul language, you're embarking on a trip down the rabbit hole.

technotony• 14 years ago

The 'everything' in our power comment is particularly weak. It suggests there are ways in which the users identity can be revealed, even if they aren't abusive.

rntz• 14 years ago

If a user uses your service in an inappropriate way, then stop letting that user send messages. Don't reveal their identity.

Threats of physical harm might constitute a valid exception. At that point, law enforcement should be involved.

trusko2• 14 years ago

I worked on something similar but more generic - http://www.complainator.com/

The idea is that for example you like service provider (gym, dentist), you want to keep coming back, but you want to let them know about something that's bugging you - noisy music, messy office, toilets etc. I got feedback from some people where their issues were resolved.

When it comes to bosses ... I just can't imagine it working unless you have 10 or more people on the team. You can't discuss particular situations because your identity would be revealed. But that's me, I wish you good luck

happiily15• 14 years ago

Looks like you are in BC. Our team is on Vancouver Island! We're doing everything we can to keep the feedback inside Tell Your Boss Anything civil.

You're absolutely right that the degree of anonymity is increased with more people on a team.

pavel_lishin• 14 years ago

It's weird to address the issue of anonymity, by starting out with "I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE".

trusko2• 14 years ago

Would be fun to get in touch, if you are interested maybe share some ideas ...

danso• 14 years ago

Unless this becomes viral and ubiquitously popular, I imagine the average boss will perceive this bizarre mode of communication as being passive-aggressive/somewhat-creepy, and thus will instinctively have a dismissive attitude towards whatever feedback is sent through it. At the very least, he/she will spend a significant amount of time mentally sussing out clues to, "Who the hell sent this?"

happiily15• 14 years ago

What we're seeing (and what we hope continues) is managers proactively using the service as a place where employees can turn to provide feedback that they're not yet comfortable discussing in person.

manishsharan• 14 years ago

This is a bad idea. Email is simply the a horribly ineffective way of communicating with your boss , especially for sensitive matters. Instead treat your boss to coffee/tea/beer and bring up whatever is bugging you. The worst thing you can do it to involve a third party.

happiily15• 14 years ago

We absolutely believe that the best way to resolve an issue is to communicate face-to-face with your boss. The problem is that there are many reasons why someone doesn't feel comfortable in doing so. Thus, we've created this outlet as a starting place. Also, while this tool might not be for you, I don't think that invalidates the idea. Might others not share your confidence in addressing any issue with their boss?

One outcome we'd like to see from this tool is for conversations that begin anonymously to end in person. In other words, that we're helping initially build the trust to bring employee and manager together in person.

We have a feedback mechanism for both sides of the conversation to indicate whether - as a result of the conversation - the issue has been resolved, worsened or improved. We'd like to see a lot of "resolved."

empika4• 14 years ago

As I mentioned in my previous comment, it would be great to give some advice on how best to give feedback and have conversations in person. Any plans for that sort of thing?

aculver• 14 years ago

Don't do this, unless your boss has specifically opted into a service like this.

First, if you need to use a service like this to get stuff across to your boss, this is my feedback to you:

Fix yourself (specifically the issue you have bringing stuff up with your boss) or (if they're the reason you feel like you can't talk to them about something) find a new boss. No amount of anonymous feedback is going to fix a poor relationship with your boss. And it's probably not going to fix the other stuff, either.

Anonymous feedback is terrible:

- It's too easy for a manager to disregard or mentally down-vote as being from a bad apple or someone they don't see eye-to-eye with.

- Without being able to put your feedback in context of who you are, where you're coming from, and what your relationship is with them, it could also make what you're saying a lot more hurtful than you mean it to be. For example, they might think it was from someone else. And maybe your feedback, coming from someone else they work more closely with, would really hit a nerve for some reason.

- It also seems unthoughtful to deliver anonymous feedback to someone without giving them some way of addressing the feedback, perhaps giving you some feedback of their own, should they think the feedback was flawed in some way.

Instead, we need to be having real conversations. If those aren't working, maybe you're in the wrong place.

dutchbrit2• 14 years ago

Beautifully written, I agree 100%

happiily15• 14 years ago

"No amount of anonymous feedback is going to fix a poor relationship with your boss"

If a relationship has become truly broken, it's unlikely our system is going to fix it. In that case, you might be right that the person should seek employment elsewhere.

But there are many scenarios by which the relationship can be improved by anonymous feedback. Keep in mind that a lot of the feedback managers tell us they get are based on feedback about systems, tools used, company policies and the like.

We've built (and are building) a follow-up mechanism to try and ensure good feedback doesn't go ignored and that the downvoting you speak of is actually transparent in the system.

If you try our service, you'll see that the feedback is in fact both ways. Managers can reply, ask follow-up questions, mark the issue as resolved and so on. Likewise, the employee can reply and do the same.

Not everyone wants to leave or feels they can leave (in this economy). They want a mechanism to try and fix something without fear of retribution. That's what we're trying to provide.

dutchbrit2• 14 years ago

Giving feedback is always better in person I find, mainly because giving feedback in person (not to be mistaken with criticism) allows you to have a fluid conversation, your boss will also appreciate it more, you show you really care and you have the balls to go up to him. People get promoted that way. It's just more "relaxed" and your boss will take it more serious.

antidoh• 14 years ago

And, your boss may be able to figure out who the feedback came from, based on the feedback itself. Weakens the anonymity.

greenyoda2• 14 years ago

Not to mention that an enemy of yours could send anonymous feedback to your boss and deliberately make it look like it was something that came from you.

Of course, this is nothing new, given how easy it is to create a throw-away e-mail account.

Tloewald• 14 years ago

I don't know how they plan to initiate the connection, but if the way it works is that the boss is initially referred to the site and offered the service (not receiving any feedback at that point) and it is suggested they list other people who might want to provide them with feedback etc. then the system has much better chances. This has the extra virtue of making it more viral.

The point is to make the whole thing as little like a last resort and as much like an opt-in continuous process, no matter how it is initiated, as possible.

happiily15• 14 years ago

Yes exactly! We are implementing this feature - almost exactly as described - within the next week.

vtry• 14 years ago

Find a better job. The job market for tech people is booming.

huwr• 14 years ago

Nice try, my boss.

pyoung• 14 years ago

I could see HR throwing a fit if they ever found out that an employee used a non-approved third party service to voice an official complaint.

Interesting idea, but tread lightly. A better idea would be to implement this as enterprise SAAS. That way employees wouldn't have to worry about HR policy.

greenyoda2• 14 years ago

If the service was paid for by your employer you wouldn't be able to trust it to be anonymous.

Ganthor• 14 years ago

While the design seems fairly nice, the idea is nothing new.

Rypple, founded in 2008, started out with an anonymous feedback application built for the enterprise (albeit, I don't think the messaging was quite as forward as it is for this service, I think it required the manager opting in). Rypple eventually pivoted into a performance management cum next-gen performance review app, but the anonymous feedback feature is still a component. It was acquired by Salesforce.com last year.

I love the idea of anonymous feedback, it's one of the aspects of Rypple that initially attracted me to work at the company (I used to work at Rypple).

However, I'm not even sure Rypple was the first mover in the corporate anonymous feedback space, there's been quite a few similar services over the years. I think an app with just this feature, given how there's been consolidation in the HCM industry and providers now often offer a full suite of HR/performance management tools nowadays, is unlikely to achieve major success. That said, there's still a ton of small startups in the space that have similar ideas to Happiily.

happiily15• 14 years ago

We're not laying claim to being first. Anonymous Feedback is nothing new. 'Anonymous' suggestion boxes been around for a long time.

By the sounds of it, you're aware of our enterprise product (i.e. has to be activated by a manager or leadership team) product called happiily which is also our company name. Part of our motivation in building this new product was to provide smaller companies and teams a product to collect feedback quickly.

As well, we wanted to build a product that could provide value without first being activated by a manager. That's really the crux of the experiment here at Tell Your Boss Anything.

And yes, there are lots of startups seeking to improve the way people work. And that's a good thing.

mmahemoff• 14 years ago

If employees have to resort to anonymous feedback, something's broken. A good use for this website is for companies to monitor any traffic coming from this domain, and treat it as a red flag.

happiily15• 14 years ago

You're probably right about things being broken. The whole point of this site is to help fix them.

pejapeja• 14 years ago

I tried it out, the boss have to pay to read the message. Kind of smart way to get some income but from the bosses' point of view, having to pay money to get a bitter message will just make the day for them...

happiily15• 14 years ago

To be clear, the first person that sends feedback to their boss, the boss sees that feedback and can reply to that for free.

Only when a 2nd person sends feedback to that same manager, does the rest of the feedback (from employee 2, 3, 4etc) get locked until the manager switches to a paying account.

Tell Your Boss Anything

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