Is it okay to give you some feedback?

A simple phrase that can strike fear into the hearts of the most courageous person.

But should we really be afraid of it?  

The very best actors are hungry for feedback. They actively seek out what is working and what is not, to improve their performance each and every time they get on stage. People who are sponges for feedback tend towards far greater levels of improvement at far faster rates so why do so many people shut down to this potential tool for improvement? 

Mainly, it is the personalisation of feedback as some kind of personal attack or takedown that makes people shut down to feedback and the improvement that it may contain. 

This “shut down” is a completely natural response to a feeling of having to protect oneself (from attack) but it is incredibly unhelpful when the feedback provider is seeking to help.  So how can the receiver be sure that the feedback provider can be trusted.   

Here are three ideas from Adam Grant in his book “Hidden Potential” that give us a good checklist for who we receive feedback from.

1.        Care: Is the person giving you feedback invested in me or themselves when giving the feedback? Do they truly care about me? If they don’t care, then they might give feedback that progresses them rather than you.

2.        Familiarity: Is the person giving the feedback familiar with me, where I am at and where I seek to get to? Do they understand the way in which I best integrate feedback?  If they are not familiar with you then they may very well give well-meaning and even highly useful feedback which simply isn’t relevant to you and where you are right now.      

3.        Expertise: Is the person giving you the feedback able to do the thing they are trying to coach you in? If they can’t “do it” are they truly ‘qualified’ to help you improve? If not, you may be taking on feedback that is inaccurate or simply doesn’t work.  

If the person giving the feedback does care about you, is familiar with you and has the expertise to help and we find ourselves still ignoring or shutting down to the feedback then we need to look at ourselves and whether we are truly protecting ourselves or only our egos.

Actively seeking feedback from those you trust is essential to growing your greatness.  

Andrew ‘Sponging it up’ Wright