NEXT RATED- 5 NOTEWORTHY POINTS BEFORE SEEKING FOR THAT FEEDBACK.
(A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS) How to receive an honest feedback.
Businesses, service providers- humans in general require feedbacks. This serves as a meter for our continuous learning and growth. It is an undeniable avenue for us to recognize our abilities, competencies and incompetency.
Does it scare you to ask for feedback? Sometimes the question of who to ask and how to ask hinders us from reaching out. To make it easier, I highlighted a few points that worked and has been working for me. I hope it does for you too.
5 IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE BEFORE SEEKING FOR THAT FEEDBACK
- You cannot control the answers
- Invest in building trusting relationships
- Ask the right persons
- Don’t fret over peoples desire for anonymity
- Be open minded!
Before you embark on the journey of asking people or your friends what they think your weaknesses and strengths are, its rather imperative you note these salient points:
1. YOU CAN’T CONTROL THE ANSWERS: I should warn that it will hurt. The answers will leave you devastated, happy, sad, ecstatic- simply put you will go through a myriad of emotions. This is because you have no control over peoples opinion of you in any way whatsoever, negative or positive, constructive or destructive. You requested for that didn’t you?
I was going through a post randomly on Quora where someone was of the opinion that when it comes to feedback, you can’t argue with other peoples opinion of you. I think that summarizes everything.
2. BUILD TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS: I know this should come first but for some reason here we are lol. You can’t ask people who aren’t secure enough around you for feedback. Pushing people for information might result to misinformation. Coupled with this, It isn’t exactly comfortable for anyone (“hello stranger”) to start blubbering about things they have no idea about. If you find yourself in a higher position, do not pester your juniors for their thoughts. They might be a little bit too eager to please you!
So a very crucial step will be to develop important friendships. Numerous studies have confirmed that people who genuinely listen almost always encourage friendships. We do this by being that person- show people that you value their opinion. To do this one has to not just pay attention but also actively listen. This way, you are more likely to build trust and encourage a genuine feedback loop. To top it all, the whole process flows more like a normal conversation than a hard task.
3. ASK THE RIGHT PERSONS THE RIGHT QUESTIONS: When I was seeking for feedback, I had to sieve my contact. I wasn’t about going to ask just every soul. I reached out to those who had actually spent a great amount of time with me to perceive the totality of my being in respect to my thought processes, reaction to situations, emotions, attention span, and relationship with others.
One of the striking things about this approach would be the consistency of people’s idea of you. If you think people aren’t looking, noticing, observing then you should re-evaluate. Another noteworthy point to take home is that the thoughts you have about yourself is totally inaccurate compared to what others think about you
4. ANONYMITY- There are tons of reasons why people aren’t comfortable giving out feedback. If you notice this situation as prevalent in your circle, then it would be advised the whole process should be anonymously carried out, it doesn’t matter the avenue. This is safer because providing feedback to an emotionally unintelligent person could affect your relationship. It also helps the you the receiver concentrate on the feedback instead of the person behind it.
5. Be open minded enough to accept both the negative and positive responses especially constructive ones and for crying out loud when someone provides you with a personal feedback, show gratitude. It’s not their job.
Why ask for feedbacks? Why even bother when really you could just continue doing you? Feedbacks gives you room to pinpoint your shortcomings, work on them and accelerate your growth.
Just found out from the recent SWOT/feedback analysis I did that I have a low attention span for things that does not “interest” me. Now guess who’s working on that?
If you find it uneasy as I have mentioned earlier to seek out physically for feedbacks, there are countless surveys online. You can create, map out and send your questions to your friends, family, co-workers (people generally) whose opinion matters to you the most.
GOODLUCK!!!
#Gen-z #life #healing #selflove #work #lifelessons #productivity #selfawareness #lifelessons #motivation #personal development
