Here are the 4 most common pitfalls of summer interns:

1. Not getting good / meaningful work
2. Not knowing how to do the work you do have
3. Not knowing how well (or poorly) you’re doing
4. Not meeting the right people

Not Getting Good / Meaningful Work

If you’re still fetching coffee every morning and spending more time by the photocopier than in team meetings, then it’s probably a sign that you’re not being challenged quite enough.  Think about what you set out to learn this summer and approach your supervisor or mentor to ask for some good practical experience learning how to do X, Y, or Z.  

Suggest a few ideas of how you might spend some time advancing your cause in the next few weeks to learn any of those particular skills (“Would it help if I put together a first cut of the presentation for you?”  “Would you like me to review the project plan?” “Is there anything I can do to help on the Seagram’s account, I’d love to learn more about the sales process.”

Alternatively, if you know you’re a great writer and you haven’t been given an opportunity to show off your stuff, think about creating an opportunity to excel.  Offer to draft a memo, edit a presentation or review a document—anything that will play to your strengths and show off your natural talents and abilities before summer is through.

Not Knowing How to Do the Work You Do Have

If challenging assignments are a dime a dozen and instead you suffer from the opposite problem of having great work but not knowing how to do that work, than you’ve got to learn to Ask for Help.  One good way to ask for help includes asking for an example or template of a given assignment—you’d be surprised at how much institutional knowledge usually exists in organizations.  Another idea is to ask for recommendations of people to speak with who can help your cause—perhaps Anthony from accounting worked on a similar project last fall.   Don’t be afraid to ask for the resources you need to get your job done well.

Not Knowing How Well You’re Performing

There’s always someone who finishes up at the end of August thinking they’ve got a full-time offer in the bag or certain they’ve knocked the ball out of the park in terms of their performance, only to find out instead that, contrary to their own rosy assessment of the summer, they actually didn’t quite make the cut.

The only way to know for sure whether or not you’re meeting expectations is to Ask for Feedback.  Don’t wait for a final conversation with your boss at the end of the summer to ask her how you did—by then it’s too late.  Take the initiative now to inquire about your performance.  Be specific about what areas of performance you’re looking for feedback on and give her some time to think about it in advance before scheduling the actual conversation.  Once you have the actual conversation, be sure to solicit concrete ideas about how to improve or contribute more to your teams over the next few weeks.

Not Meeting the Right People

If you’re halfway through the summer and the only person in the office who knows your name is your mentor, than it’s time to step it up and make the rounds.  You don’t have to start dropping by everyone’s office and chatting them up in the middle of the day, but pick three or four people and make a point to reach out to each of them in the next few weeks.

You can email people or stop by their office and ask if they’ve got a few minutes of time to speak with you.  Then ask them some smart and pointed questions about what they do for the organization, how they got started in their careers and what advice they have for newcomers.  Everyone’s busy, but people love talking about themselves.  If you show a genuine interest in their work and career progression, you’ll find that most people are pretty generous in terms of sharing their stories.

It’s hard to argue that a primetime network T.V. show that debuts after the Super Bowl has any mission other than to entertain the masses. It’s perhaps unfair then to ascribe any responsibility to the “Undercover Boss” other than the blatantly obvious—we all knew what we were getting—another reality show.

In reality T.V., however, there is an endgame separate and apart from mere entertainment. The Bachelor promises love, American Idol fortune and fame, and The Apprentice, a dream job with The Donald. In the case of the Undercover Boss: the chance for an executive to “garner an up-close look at his company and workforce to see how and where improvements can be made.”

And so I found myself hopeful that Larry O’Donnell, President and COO of Waste Management might provide both entertainment and some real lessons on management and leadership. Unfortunately, Larry missed the boat on the valuable learning of the day—namely the importance of a feedback loop within an organization.

Initial praise for the show ran deep, with the New York Times quoting executive producer Stephen Lambert “Anybody who has had a boss, or who has worked in a company, will understand this show…and for the person in charge, to be able to see what their employees are really doing seemed like an exciting idea.”

Exciting isn’t exactly the word many would use to describe a manager’s responsibility to know what his employees are doing. Shouldn’t it be expected (or at least aspired to) that leaders know what their front-line workers are up to?

With the five employees Larry shadowed on candid-camera, he proposed tailor-made remedies to each of their complaints—a task force here, a new policy there, a modest wage increase for another. Larry was genuinely touched by the challenges his employees faced and was humbled by the dignity and respect with which they carried themselves and contributed to the organization. Yet it’s not what Larry learned that was disappointing—it’s what he didn’t learn.

Standing on a podium presenting his “findings” to a raucous crowd of WM employees, Larry failed to consider the issues facing the remaining 45,000 employees of Waste Management. Larry didn’t look at the big picture of what the show revealed. Instead of fixating on the individual problems that surfaced during the show, Larry should have realized that WM appears to be an organization in which no effective feedback loop exists. To be sure, the five lucky employees who spent a day with Larry weren’t the only ones suffering at the hands of the productivity missives barreling down from the top.

It’s not just a problem that female garbage collectors aren’t given the decency of bathroom breaks: it’s a problem that Larry didn’t know that that was the case. It’s not just a problem that employees were dashing out of the cafeteria, petrified of being docked pay–it’s a problem that their behavior had never reached him. If Larry heads back to WM and makes only incremental changes in a few of the company’s practices, he’s missed an enormous opportunity to improve something much more critical to his company.

The key lesson for Larry is that productivity initiatives are a two-way street. There’s got to be an information channel that goes from bottom to top as well as from top to bottom. Based on his week in the field, Larry might have realized that Waste Management wasn’t doing a good job of listening to and soliciting feedback from its frontline employees—hearing from them what was working and what wasn’t, what was helping them and what was hurting them. Making people happy, giving them ownership in processes and policies, and treating employees like valued and respected members of a community or organization—that’s the way to increase productivity.

Senior leadership has a responsibility to know what employees are doing on a regular basis—it shouldn’t be treated as a special event. I believe management has a responsibility to work the front lines of every organization. There’s a reason we have a “take your kids to work” day and not a “take your boss to work day.” It’s expected that the boss knows how to pick up trash, make a widget or close the deal. Many companies are on top of this: Zappo’s CEO spends time talking to customers and filling orders and the CEO of Burger King knows how to work a cash register. And even on Wall Street, you’re hard pressed to find a managing director who didn’t cut his or her teeth pulling all-nighters as a lowly analyst. Wouldn’t it have been great if Larry had taken his moment on reality TV to learn that lesson–and to show the rest of us what that transformation could look like?

To see the HBR comments, click here

Monthly is too often—it can overwhelm the person from whom you’re requesting the feedback.  About once a quarter is a good target—the goal is to have 3-5 touch points over the course of the year. You can and should spread those requests for feedback out—don’t always ask the same person for feedback.  Have a stable of people you’re hearing from and listening to—both junior and senior to you.

from the Q&A portion of the Forte Foundation webinar “Successfully Navigating the Workplace: Communication Strategies for Women Leaders”

I had the same feeling this weekend reading the New York Times, although instead of not being “in the know” this time, I was right where I wanted to be.  I had just last week written a blog post when I read the NYT Corner Office interview with Maigread Eichten, president and chief executive of FRS, a maker of energy drinks.  Maigread was asked about how she gives feedback. Here’s what she said:

“One of the most memorable things one of my bosses at Pepsi told me was that if you really care about somebody, you give them constructive feedback. And if you don’t care about somebody, you only say positive things. That’s stuck with me all this time. So I really try to make sure that I give people good, constructive feedback – positive first, of course, then constructive, and I give it in real time. It’s got to be in the moment. It’s got to be private.

If you missed my post, 4 Steps to Giving Criticism in a Constructive (Versus Destructive) Way, go check it out.  It will give you tips on how to do what Maigread agrees is so critical to success.  In fact, Maigread highlighted 3 of the 4 issues I raised i) it’s the right thing to do (hard things usually are) ii) positive first then negative; and iii) give it real time and in private (or off-line as I call it).

But don’t take my word for it, take hers…

NYT Corner Office

2. Share the good before the bad-always try to find something good about the work someone has done-even if the deliverable or work product is a total failure, you can and should try to at least acknowledge someone’s effort or their time, a good attitude or intentions, or someone’s willingness to attempt the task. * this is not always possible, see below for exception to the rule.

3. Highlight specific examples of why something is bad or wrong-show evidence and be specific-go back to high-school English class here and use ways in which or reasons why.  Don’t say “this memo is terrible, you need to re-write it,” instead say, “The overview section is far too broad and the management section is missing key principles.”  Or, “I don’t agree with the organization and the focus on operational challenges, I think the memo needs to instead highlight the following three points.”

4. Give concrete actions strategies for improvement of performance – Be explicit and be generous in sharing ways this person can improve-perhaps it’s suggestions of people to talk to or sharing a recent example of a deliverable that was well thought out or well received.  If it’s someone’s bad attitude you’re confronting, then give actionable pointers to help that person be perceived as having a good attitude-you might suggest getting to the office earlier in the morning, proactively offering to help out on their teams more often, assuming more responsibility within a given team without having to be asked to do so, or spending more time mentoring junior team members, for example.

As a junior VP on Wall Street, my boss (a managing director) took the reigns of a conference call one day with one of my clients-she essentially ran the entire call without letting me speak or asking my opinion.  I didn’t get a word in edge wise – which was insulting given that I was this client’s key liaison.  After the call, I was fuming.   I immediately gathered my nerve, however, and went into her office and asked her if she had a moment.  In a respectful but firm voice, I told her that I’d appreciate it, going forward, if she’d let me lead calls with this particular client given my relationship with them and the fact that I was closer to the specific deal than she was.  I emphasized that it undermined my credibility with the client to let her run the call.

She immediately i) understood my point ii) apologized and iii) agreed to let me lead calls going forward.  The strategy worked. Here’s why:

• I took it off line.  I didn’t interrupt the call and try to take over from her or cause a raucous in front of the client (step 1)
• I was specific in telling her why this was bad/wrong i.e. it undermined my credibility (step 3)
• I proposed a solution: “going forward, I’d appreciate if you’d let me lead the call next time…” instead of marching into her office and asking her why she didn’t let me speak (it didn’t really matter at that point, it was already over, what mattered is that it didn’t happen again) and focused on the future (step 4)

Note that in this case I don’t have a step 2; I don’t think you always need it, especially during “real time” feedback/criticism.  If it’s in the heat of the moment, then the important thing is to get your point across effectively.  My boss didn’t need me to tell her what a great job she did leading the call in this case.

If you’re a small business and you get slammed online for surly wait staff, crappy pizza or poor service, there’s only so much you can do to fight back to your critics on Yelp.  According to a great article in Inc. Magazine, Craig Stoll, co-owner of Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco handles the negative feedback in a more creative way-he flaunts it-on t-shirts for his staff.  In Delfina’s opinion, fighting back on-line is a lose-lose situation, you either come off “defensive or accusatory” he says.

But others disagree with Stoll and say online feedback, no matter how brutal, can be a good opportunity for identifying areas of opportunity and improvement.  Boutique bookstore owner Eric Kirsammer of Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago uses Yelp to regularly check for tips of what he could be doing better.  Quimby’s got rave reviews for the store’s selection but poor remarks for a perceived unwelcoming staff.  The solution? Kirsammer revamped his customer service approach and now makes a point of being extra welcoming, especially to new customers.

Two small business owners, two different philosophies.  In the corporate world, you can do much the same thing (sans the printed t-shirts).  You can choose a path of denial or ignorance (there’s a lot of noise out there anyway, it can be hard to discern what is meaningful and relevant versus what isn’t) or you can take your punches on the chin and face your critics head on.

I tend to think that all feedback, especially negative feedback, is a great and underutilized tool for improving performance.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s always nice to get props from friends and colleagues about how swell you and your ideas are, but is it helpful?  Not necessarily.

Jason Garrett, of the Dallas Cowboys tells his players, “I’m not going to tell you everything is ok and allow you to be mediocre.  I played [football] for a long time; the coaches that drive me crazy to this day are the ones that told me I was good all the time.  ‘Well hey, you’re doing a great job’ and I knew I was mediocre as hell.  And the guy that was on my ass, that made be good every day is the guy that I appreciate right now.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Carol Smith, SVP and chief brand officer for the Elle Group, agrees as well.  She recently sounded off in a NY Times article about the fact that she was a good confronter and believes that it’s better to say “That presentation was bad. It didn’t work, and here’s why it didn’t work” versus just calling it great and moving on to the next thing.

If you do decide that the feedback you get (solicited or unsolicited) is meaningful and relevant, than the key is to extract the constructive follow-up:  what can I do to improve?  What should I be doing differently? What should I do more of… or less of… or faster or slower or with a different goal, objective or target audience.  Are there other people (or businesses or strategies) I should model myself after? That’s where the learning is.  Push your critics to share their ideas or best practices or recommendations.  You can always decide once you’ve heard the remedy whether the advice is sound or not.

This spring, I was on a whirlwind tour of speaking presentations at business schools.  One morning, I arrived in Philly to speak to the Wharton MBAs.  I went to ladies room five minutes before the presentation, glanced at myself in a full length mirror and gasped.  There before my very eyes was me in a mis-matched suit.  A brown jacket paired with black pants and a blue shirt.  I was mortified.  How in the hell had I made it all the way from NYC to Philly without realizing I had put on the wrong pants (or jacket, depending on how you looked at it)?

A healthy dose of negative feedback would have done wonders for me that morning. Would it have killed the stranger on the subway to say to me, “Hey lady, you look ridiculous” or my husband, to say “Sweets, did you mean to put on black pants with a brown jacket?”  With a little feedback my fashion faux paux might easily have been avoided.