Feedback is a gift. Ideas
are the currency of our next success. Let people see you value both feedback
and ideas.
~Jim Trinka and Les Wallace
Last week was packed full of
feedback. My week started by
facilitating a leadership team in an exercise to ease them into experiencing
accountability. They each wrote down the
greatest strength and one area of improvement for every other team member. Then we began with the CEO. Each person first told him his greatest
strength and then we went around the room one more time and each identified an
area they believed he could improve upon.
Then the CEO could respond to what he had heard. We repeated that process for every team
member.
What became a common theme throughout
this exercise was how genuinely appreciative everyone was for the
feedback. This was not a painful process
(as some had feared); in fact, there was a sufficient amount of laughter
interspersed throughout the exercise. As
the final member of the team gave his response to what he heard from his
colleagues, he provided the perfect closing to this session. He said, "after doing this, I sense a greater
level of trust among this group." Feedback is a gift!
Next I spent time poring through the
results of an employee satisfaction survey for another organization. Like every organization, they heard both
praises and pitfalls from their employees.
What followed from the CEO was not rationalization or defensiveness in
response to the negative comments, but a plan of action that was already being
put into place to address areas of concern.
Without this feedback, these potential pitfalls could continue to grow
and fester and cause irreparable damage.
Feedback is a gift!
In another scenario, I learned that a
supervisor is covering for one of their direct reports by trailing them and
then "fixing" what doesn't get fully completed.
In this situation feedback is being avoided. The consequence is that the direct report's
credibility is being undermined because other people know that this supervisor
is trailing them and picking up the pieces.
This supervisor is forgetting that feedback doesn't have to be
painful. In fact, feedback is a gift!
On a more personal note, I admittedly
struggle with perfectionism. Sometimes
I'll avoid doing something or trying something because I know I won't be able
to do it perfectly. How shameful if I
can’t perform perfectly! I was coached
through this dilemma this week. One of
my strengths (I'm using StrengthsFinder language) is "learner." Part of the learning process is receiving
feedback so you can change and improve. If I can
reframe my thinking from "not being perfect" to "an opportunity to learn" by
receiving feedback I could maybe get beyond my not so helpful obsession with
perfectionism. So my mantra needs to
become: Feedback is a gift!
Dr. Henry Cloud in his book, Integrity, recounts an incident that
happened on a retreat for CEOs, when a young "superstar" was given an
opportunity to receive feedback from a more senior CEO.
One of the more experienced guys looked up and said, "Want some feedback?" He said it in a way that left you wondering whether he was going to give sage advice or rail at the young man for being out to lunch in some way. There was just no way to tell from his poker face. But I will never forget the young superstar's immediate response: "By all means. Give me a gift." He saw the feedback, whatever it was, as a gift because it could give him some reality that he did not know. I remember thinking, "We will be watching this guy's accomplishments for a long time."Feedback is a gift!
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