“Feedback is the food of champions.” – Ken Blanchard
I am a big fan of feedback. I welcome it, I invite it, I encourage it. Some feedback is difficult to take. Other feedback can catch us by surprise. Regardless, feedback is an important part of our improvement and personal growth.
The feedback I have received has enabled me to improve my workshops, refine my content, go deeper in some areas, and eliminate surplus content. My aim is to continuously improve and provide a great service to my clients. And feedback helps me to accomplish this.
Receiving feedback from unexpected sources
Often, many of us dismiss feedback from people we do not like, or from a stranger or someone who we feel knows less than us. After all, I am supposed to be the expert. Why would I listen to them?
What we don’t realise is that feedback from strangers and people we find difficult to get along with has key learnings that are significant to our growth, both personally and professionally. Because they don’t know us, these people will be more prepared to be honest and they will see things that others don’t.
We often grow the most when we are under stress or when we are in conflict. So, feedback from these difficult customers or managers who seem a bit harsh can be valuable, revealing new insights about us.
This feedback, regardless of how negative or disappointing it is, can be what challenges us and pushes us to test our limits. It’s what pushes us to go outside our comfort zone. And in the end, we become better versions of ourselves.
Your personal and professional growth
We tend to like people who like us. And we tend to look forward to their positive feedback and accolades. The problem is as someone who likes us, may see us with rose-coloured glasses and only see our good points.
If you want to fast-track your personal and professional development, go to the people who give you the hardest time. Go to those who are not your best friend or favourite work colleague. Go to those who will be honest and are not afraid of jeopardising a friendship by being honest with you.
Looking at the feedback you receive
A final word of clarification. Feedback is simply another person’s observation or view of you. It is not necessarily right or wrong. It is just their opinion. Ultimately, we must choose what we do with any feedback that we receive.
Remember that there will be feedback that will contain absolute gems in helping us to improve. There will be feedback that contains revelations, which we can now adjust to and improve. And there will be feedback that we choose to ignore because we feel that it is not relevant, or it is beyond our control.
So welcome feedback into your workplace. Use it as an opportunity to grow. And do consider the feedback you receive from people who don’t like you, from strangers, and from those who have nothing to gain from giving you feedback.
If you want to learn more about giving feedback, I run a workshop on Giving and Receiving Feedback.