Ways to get the feedback you want and need
Instead of talking about giving feedback, I’m going to talk a little about receiving feedback. Many of us want to hear how we can do things better or what we are doing well that does not need to change, but we aren’t able to get feedback.
The main reason we are not getting feedback is that it is often hard to give feedback. Your supervisor doesn’t want to have a “tough” conversation any more than you do. So the status quo goes on, no one wants to rock the boat – even gently.
You can take control of this and get the input you need in a couple of ways.
1. Ask your supervisor for feedback on one thing they really like about what you’re doing and one thing they’d suggest trying differently. Take the pressure off by making sure to give them time to think about this – send an email in advance of your meeting or ask them to consider the question for your next meeting.
2. Come up with your own feedback and validate it with your supervisor. This looks something like this: “I noticed I’m not getting a lot of traction with my ideas in meetings. I have a theory that this is because I’m not soliciting enough input from other teams first. Have you noticed this? As a possible way to work on this, I was thinking about meeting up with some peers on the other teams to ask them for their input before sharing mine. Do you think this is a good strategy? Is there anything else you would suggest?”
3. Ask for feedback from others who are not your supervisors. If you have peers you trust, you can ask them to watch out for particular things you are trying to work on and offer to do the same for them.
We all want to get better at what we do but figuring out exactly how to do that can be tough!
