Receiving feedback

One of the things I think is actually quite challenging is getting feedback when you're running a business. Because, most of your employees just assume you know exactly what you're doing. They don't really necessarily feel the need to give you feedback. But, we're also people and we do need to get that feedback where we need to know: are we doing a good job or should we be doing something different? So we try to encourage this as much as possible.

If you think about how within an organism and outside an organism, things interact, and there are signals that are always sent. So currently, your body's producing a plethora of hormones and you have these binding receptors that those hormones sort of bind to, to be able to send these specific signal to particular parts of your body and cells. Similarly, in the world of building a business or just building something as part of a team, there are signals you need to be receptive of to be able to do your work properly. And that feedback, whether what we call biological feedback or feedback within an organisation are exactly the same. And without that feedback, there is no such thing as improvement or progress.

Asking for feedback is a skill and not a lot of people have it. And asking for feedback and not reacting is like an art form. I definitely try to ask for feedback. I'm always offended if someone says something not nice, but one of the things that I've realised, or that I say to myself whenever I'm getting feedback, is they're saying this to try to help you, they're not saying this to try to hurt you. And if you go at it that way, then even if they're saying constructive things, it's with the purpose of helping you, not with the purpose of putting you down. And I say that to myself, but it still sucks.

It's way easier to give feedback if you're asking for specific feedback. So, what I mean is asking someone what am I doing that's good is going to lead to much fewer helpful insights than asking someone, “We just worked on this project together, how do you think my approach to delivery was?” or “How do you think my time management was?” Because then you have examples of why something worked or why it didn't work. And it's way easier to answer. It's way easier to give feedback on specific questions. So, if someone asks you specifically for your experience working with them on X, it's way easier for you to answer than giving kind of really generic feedback that takes a long time to think about, especially if you're going to give good feedback. So, asking for feedback on specific tasks or projects that you worked on will tend to give you better feedback faster.

I think it's really easy to take things really personally. It's really easy to feel like it's saying something about you. Some negative feedback might be taken really, really personally and really emotionally. Every bit of negative feedback is an opportunity for growth. I think if you know about your areas for growth, you are so much more equipped to do anything than you were before you that feedback. It's not to say it's not difficult to hear because nobody likes to hear feedback that's negative, but if you can find a way of changing the perspective on it and thinking, actually I'm aware of my blind spots here and I can make them better. That's just makes you bit of invincible, right?