This article is about how to ask for (and act on) feedback. Because one of the best ways for people to realize their potential is to receive and act on feedback. Unfortunately, human beings are fairly terrible at accepting praise and listening to criticism.
How to Ask for Feedback
“Getting valid and useful feedback is essential to learning. And learning is the master skill,” say Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner in this HBR article about how leaders need to ask for feedback in order to reach their potential.
The problem is that the majority of leaders don’t want feedback, don’t ask for it, and, when they get it, don’t act on it. Kouzes and Posner have a solution, though:
“If you want a genuine assessment of how you’re doing, you’re going to have to make the first move and ask for it. That’s what leaders do, by the way: Go first.”
People who deal well and harness critical feedback are more likely to reach their potential. Here is how Fast Company’s Denis Wilson sees the importance of acting on critical feedback:
“Research shows people that are better at handling negative feedback tend to be more successful–and those that can’t are less so. A recent study found that 46% of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months. Of those that fail, 26% do so because they can’t accept feedback, according the study, which was conducted by leadership training firm Leadership IQ.”
Over the past three weeks I have led and participated in nearly half-a-dozen workshops, onboarding programs, and leadership development seminars. I’ve given, received and observed spectacular, average and horrifying feedback that runs the gamut; from ridiculous to exceptionally polished.
Inspired by the above, here are five tips for gathering feedback from colleagues, friends, neighbours, collaborators, and strangers and turning their ideas into professional awesomeness.
Openly Crave Feedback
Recently I drafted an email for a group of influential leaders at Vancity. My goal was to make a good first impression, so I asked a colleague to provide me with feedback on my work. “Please make edits as you see fit and let me know how I can improve my next email,” I said. “Sure thing,” he replied. “You know, John, it’s great to work with someone who is so open to feedback; not many people are so open to hearing what they can do better.” Asking others how to improve is a very simple differentiator in life because most people aren’t open to feedback.
Honour Ideas From Everywhere
A few jobs ago I had a colleague who was frustrated because of conflicting behaviour between her and a few co-workers. She sought my advice about how to handle it. When I asked her to share their perspective, my colleague responded with the comment, “I don’t respect them, so I don’t respect their feedback.”
Fair enough. It’s hard to stomach criticism from people you don’t like and/or respect. This being said, everyone deserves the opportunity to give you feedback. “Take criticism seriously, but not personally,” recommends Hillary Clinton. Remember, you needn’t act on every piece of feedback.
Show You Understand
“So what I’m hearing is that…” This is the start of an Active Listening 101 sentence. People will often let others give positive and critical feedback without actually understanding what the feedback is. For example, when a former manager told me that I was “all over the place” in a meeting I assumed she was commenting on how I speak very quickly; this was feedback that I’d received before, after all. Luckily, she was/is an awesome manager who, after explaining her feedback, asked me to walk her through what I’d heard. As it turned out, my speed was fine, but I needed to organize my thoughts with conversational signposts (also known as key talking points to guide my audience through the conversation) so that folks in the room knew where I was trying to go.
Reflect and Learn
Receiving feedback – whether it’s good or bad – isn’t about doing one thing or another. It’s about learning from what people have to say. “[Leadership] can be learned through active experimentation, observation of others, study in the classroom or reading books, or simply reflecting on one’s own and others’ experiences,” argue Kouzes and Posner. In my opinion, being able to collect and understand feedback is absolutely a skill that comes from having and reflecting on experiences; the process might be gleaned from a book (or this blog), but it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to hone the skill just by reading The Potentiality (although we are quite good). So, crowdsource ideas and opinions about your style from everyone and learn from what folks have to say.
Co-Create Your Next Steps
Several years ago – after being called out in a program survey by a few of my students – a mentor asked me a simple question following my frustrated rant: “well, are they right?” I thought a lot about the question and then asked him for some tips and ideas about what I could do to improve the program as well as be a more authentic leader, not a salesman (this came up a few times in the survey). While in possession of the greatest intentions to act on feedback, you might not know precisely how to make it happen, so be sure to enlist the support of your loving critics, peers and mentors to build an effective action plan.
So there it is. What feedback do you have about this article?
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This article was originally published on May 7, 2014.