Asking for feedback gives us the external input we need to test our assumptions and see past our blind spots, boosting our self-awareness. But how and when should we do it?
The tricky thing about self-awareness is that, even when we’re in tune with our own emotions, strengths, weaknesses and behaviours (internal self-awareness), that doesn’t mean that we understand our impact on other people – that external self-awareness piece.
As leaders, we may (wrongly) feel that we’ve made it and hunker down with a misplaced sense of confidence about our abilities that closes us off to learning or challenge. Or we may have blind spots about aspects of our behaviour that we simply can’t see or – consciously or not – we’d prefer not to be confronted with.
Even when we do want to know how we affect others, it can feel that we have no easy way to find out. That’s why feedback can be such a powerful self-awareness tool.
Consider the success of flashing road signs that tell us how fast we’re driving and encourage us to slow down. If we so choose, we could simply use our speedometer to check that we’re staying within the speed limit. But the success of those flashing signs is evidence that we often need additional, external input to make us consider or change our behaviours.
Most of us want to continue to learn and grow at work. Hearing from others, gathering different viewpoints is an important tool for keeping us open, honest and humble. It gives us the information we need to:
test our assumptions
understand our habits, quirks, and behaviours
see through blind spots
provide a benchmark for developing our practice.
And, as well as being a tool for self-awareness, being open to feedback is also an excellent way to show ourselves to be trustworthy, to build relationships and to create open, positive cultures.
So how can we ask for and receive feedback that’s candid, meaningful and helpful?
Champion of compassionate candour Kim Scott talks about “cultures of guidance”, work environments where feedback conversations are the daily norm and a positive force for good.
To build these cultures, leaders need to learn not just to give feedback in the right way or course correct when things go less well. We need to see feedback in the round, to “get, give and encourage both praise and criticism”.
This means being open to feedback ourselves. As leaders, asking for feedback shows that we are ourselves open to challenge. We also need to be aware that feedback is only as effective as our willingness or ability to receive and absorb it.
Being open to feedback is not easy, especially when someone is telling us that we’ve not performed as well as we might or that we need to change. In their book Thanks for the Feedback, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen suggest that receiving feedback “sits at the intersection of two needs – our drive to learn and our longing for acceptance”.
That’s a tricky intersection to navigate.
Just as we need to learn how to lead good feedback conversations, we also need to learn how to engage in feedback conversations when we’re the recipient, managing our emotional triggers, taking part fully and making thoughtful choices about how we can use and learn from the information we receive.
Stone and Heen go as far as to say that “nothing affects the learning culture of an organisation more than the skill with which its executive team receives feedback”.
Cultures of guidance need leaders to walk the talk and be open to feedback themselves.
Being open to feedback is only half the battle, though.
We also need to know how to ask for it without freaking out our colleagues by exhorting them to comment or rate us on how we’re doing in ways designed to close down any chance of a useful feedback conversation.
But we do need to ask for it.
Actively soliciting feedback shows that we’re open to challenge ourselves, that guidance really is a two-way street. And it will almost certainly teach us something about ourselves, and will give us better insight into how others might feel to be on the receiving end.
It’s hard, of course, to encourage people to take what they might see as the career-limiting step of challenging their boss’s actions or behaviours. That’s why we need to help them.
Who to ask
We don’t, of course, have to ask everyone we work with to give us feedback.
If we want feedback about a specific event or behaviour, think about approaching 3 to 5 people who have your best interest at heart and will be honest with us because they want to see us grow and develop.
More people than that will be overkill. Fewer and it’ll make it harder to find patterns or trends.
We can also build our asking for feedback practice into one-to-ones with our people so that it becomes a more routine part of how we communicate regularly with our colleagues.
How to ask
When it comes to the ‘how’, Kim Scott suggests some handy tips to guide us:
Have go-to questions
Think about specific questions that will help colleagues to open up, like “What could I do or stop doing to make it easier to work with me?”; “What could I do to support you better?” or “What’s a blind spot of mine that you’ve noticed?”.
Make sure the questions are open questions (that cannot be answered simply by “yes”, “no” or a short phrase) to open up a two-way conversation.
For some people, we may need to be even more specific, focussing on something that’s happened recently or a particular behaviour you’d like to interrogate (for example, like a tendency to interrupt others).
Embracing the discomfort
Even a 'go-to' question might make the other person feel uncomfortable, and we’ll probably be feeling pretty uncomfortable too. But we need to keep going and keep asking.
We should be clear about why we’re asking, and establish that we want to lead by example when it comes to feedback.
Listening to understand, not respond
Remember that this process is all about learning.
Give people plenty of time to respond, don’t interrupt and assume positive intent. Ask question to clarify (such as “So what I’m hearing is…”) and to show that you’re listening.
It’s natural to feel defensive about any criticism, but we still need to listen and taken on board what’s been said – and not take what often feels like the natural step of pushing back.
Rewarding candour to get more of it
Say thank you – and follow up. If something needs to change as a result of the feedback, make sure it happens – and show that it’s happening.
We may sometimes be on the receiving end of criticism that’s not justified. When that happens, we still need to listen fully, but we may then choose to schedule another time to explain fully our own, contrary point of view.
But everything needs to be considered and discussed.
Assessing the guidance you get
Whatever feedback we’re given, we need to take it seriously. It helps to look for trends or patterns.
Organisational psychologist, Tasha Eurich, is of the view that “feedback from one person is a perspective; feedback from two people is a pattern; but feedback from three or more people is likely to be as close to a fact as you can get.”
Receiving feedback is all about receiving more information about ourselves. All we have to do with that information is think about it, not necessarily act on it. We might choose to sanity check any difficult or surprising findings with others.
Remember, though, that this is an impression you’ve made on someone; the impact we make becomes other people’s reality. And that’s certainly worth thinking about.
Just like a flashing sign about our speed when driving, feedback gives us the external information we need to support us to develop well-rounded self-awareness.
Asking for – and receiving – feedback about our performance and behaviours is never easy, but closing off this option brings its own risks.
If we are to tackle our blind spots and keep on learning about ourselves, we need to learn how to embrace that discomfort and put our best candid foot forward.
Identify two reasons why asking for feedback is good for leaders.
Outline three of Kim Scott’s tips for soliciting feedback.
Reflect on how you might ask for feedback from your colleagues on a regular basis. Try out some of your own go-to questions to help open up positive feedback conversations.