The Gift of Feedback

About a month ago, my leadership team agreed to invest in 360 feedback as a foundation for launching individual development plans across our entire organization. We felt that setting the tone by starting with ourselves was important. I couldn’t have agreed more.

I find feedback to be one of the most important things in my personal and professional life. I know I crave feedback more than some people, and probably at times more than is healthy. I reflect warmly on the times when friends and colleagues have taken the time to share their sincere thoughts about how I act and what I do, because:

1. They value me enough to invest their scarce time in my performance and potential
2. They trust me enough to tell me the truth, even if it is hard
3. They believe that I am capable of using the feedback well

No matter what the feedback is, feedback is a gift. That is why it is called giving feedback.

Once in my career I found myself floundering. No one would give me any feedback. I went to the people who were signaling that things weren’t working, and I said, “I know things aren’t working. I am committed to doing better. What can I do differently?” I was putting myself out there — I was scared and I was hopeful. I waited to hear the feedback.

They said, “There’s nothing you can do.”

I was stunned. It felt like waking up on Christmas morning to find there were no presents. And, I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t respond like the Whos in Whoville. I stared. I asked again and got the same response. Behind the words, I heard something darker. You are not worth my time. I do not trust you with my honest feedback. You couldn’t use it anyway.

A little part of me died. Way more than I would have lost had I gotten a wheelbarrow full of constructive feedback, filled with pound after pound of failures and foibles. Being told that there was nothing I could do, that there was no feedback to be given, was the hardest thing I had ever heard. That day, I started planning to find a new team, a team that valued me — and feedback.

So, when I asked for feedback this time and fourteen of my peers, subordinates, and colleagues responded I was thrilled. Any feedback would have been great, but reading through it one comment stood out, a growth comment within the Adaptability performance area:

There’s so much there to unpack and reflect upon. It’s like a box within a box within a box within a box. Do I seek order and patterns? Yes. Are my values deeply held? Yes. Do I see grey spaces within the world? Yes. Do I, like the Vulcans, value the good of the many over the good of the one? Yes. Do I struggle to understand and sympathize with opposing points of view? Sometimes.

But, now I can try harder. I can use this feedback along with the rest. I can embrace it and learn from it.

And that’s a gift.