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Ali Khan
Co-founder
Until now, we have covered almost all aspects of how to ask for feedback. Feedback is crucial for improving your work environment, employees' performance, and many other essential factors for better development and implementation.
To excel in our careers and lives, we need clarity. In addition to where we are heading, transparency is also about who we are. We need to be able to see ourselves honestly. To improve ourselves, we must become aware of what we do well and where we can improve. It can be a gift of sight to receive effective feedback from others. Focusing on feedback, correcting courses, and attaining our goals are the fastest ways to succeed. You receive honest, thoughtful feedback when you show that you’re open to receiving it. You can also achieve professional development through constructive criticism.
Today’s article will explain the best ways to ask for feedback.
Before everything else, you have to prepare yourself mentally before receiving feedback. You should know how to accept it and understand it comes from a professional viewpoint. There are a lot of benefits that you can gain from receiving feedback.
Your colleagues are the most likely people to give you feedback as they have the best view of you and your work. Don't overlook feedback from colleagues on the same level as managers and other leaders. It is usually safe for them to offer straightforward advice without fear of repercussions. Because you're more comfortable with them, you can tolerate their advice more quickly.
Be specific about what part of your professional life you want improvement on so you gain specific feedback, not vague hand-wavey feedback. To be prepared, think about the topic and come up with questions that speak to different aspects of that topic. This gives the person supplying the feedback a framework to work off of.
Nowadays, many of us work remotely, making getting helpful feedback more challenging. One challenge is that we might be unable to casually approach our colleague's desks and ask for their cooperation. Even though emailing can be inconvenient, asking for feedback through an email lets you state the goals clearly. Make it clear that the talk does not need to last long or be in a formal setting; rather, it is intended to assist you in evaluating your performance and moving your job ahead. Keep in mind the restrictions of virtual meetings. In video calls, essential communication cues like eye contact and body language may be missed. Direct eye contact is impossible, and posture and hand movements may not always be visible on the screen. Customer feedback also known as client feedback, this type of feedback comes from outside the organization and may come from people you do not know personally. Such feedback will let you gain insight into the customer experience. Positive feedback can serve many benefits to the table.
Many of the same guidelines apply to asking for input in person and also use when asking for it remotely. Keep your email concise and to the point regardless of the kind of feedback. Start with a feedback request. Give more specifics about the areas or categories of comments you’re looking for after that. Reduce words in your email to a minimum to make it scannable. Be precise and lucid as long sentences won't be read by occupied coworkers. They frequently misread questions as well. Make your queries specific and straightforward to improve clarity. Describe how and when you would like to get comments in detail.
If you don't frequently ask for feedback from your staff, you might want to start with a close, reliable employee. Ask for their opinion on a brief matter. As you gain momentum from your initial request, you'll ultimately feel confident approaching more staff. The employee's function and tenure are irrelevant, as good feedback can come from all people and places. Building respectful relationships with all of your direct reports include asking for and providing feedback. Depending on your tenure or role, you may use a different strategy to get information. Still, your ultimate objective should be to create a solid and collaborative team culture that encompasses your entire team. Employee feedback usually is the most important one, depending on the company's management style, they all can benefit from it. Consider regular performance reviews for your team. The business owner can incorporate a good company culture from the beginning.
Try more one-on-one conversations with the employer as it becomes more natural to you. Maintain a forward-looking perspective. Employers will respond more honestly if you ask them how you or your team can improve moving forward rather than what you did poorly in the past. Negative feedback, when properly presented, will function as constructive criticism. Open ended questions are a good option too.
Asking employers, "What do you think?" can be general and frightening. Instead, ask them specific questions regarding the subject at hand. Give it a time when your employer approves that they will answer the feedback. Some of your employers might require some time to consider your questions before they can provide insightful responses.
- It can inform your performance
- It can help you improve
- It can boost collaboration
- It can help you understand the bigger picture
- It can improve your self-awareness
1. It can inform your performance
Ask for feedback from the people around you and you’ll get a clear view of what’s going well and what needs to be improved. You’ll be able to understand how other people perceive you and how they experience working with you.
Receiving feedback helps you understand how others perceive your performance, how you stack up against your colleagues and how your strengths and weaknesses compare to theirs. This gives you the opportunity to see yourself through others’ eyes, evaluate your performance objectively and identify areas where you can improve.
You should always try to make it easy for others to give you feedback by asking them specific questions. For example, “What can I do better? What could I improve in my communication style? Do you have any ideas on how I could do ___ differently?”
2. It can help you improve
Feedback is information that helps you learn and grow, so asking for it is an important aspect of being a high performing employee. Getting feedback from the people around you will help you develop a personal development plan, so that you know precisely where to devote your time and energy.
Feedback has been proven to help employees grow professionally, develop skills and knowledge, boost their personal performance and improve their productivity.
3. It can boost collaboration
Allowing someone else to review your work or offer suggestions on how to approach a problem is something we often struggle with as adults. This is why it’s one of the biggest mistakes we see being made by employees in the workplace. Your colleagues want to help you out, so don’t be afraid to ask them for their input or advice, as long as it doesn’t compromise the work they need to do themselves.
It’s important not to read too much into other people’s feedback, especially if it doesn’t resonate with your own perspective of the situation. This can lead to serious misunderstandings and hurt feelings which are not only fruitless but also unnecessary. Always try to cultivate an open mind when receiving feedback, as long as it doesn’t compromise the integrity of your work or go against the values of your company.
Asking for feedback is a little bit like having a conversation with someone else, where they tell you something and then listen carefully while you reply back with a response of your own. You should always give others the benefit of the doubt; even if they don’t quite know how to express themselves or aren’t particularly eloquent in giving their feedback, they may still have valid points that could benefit you greatly if only you’re willing to listen carefully enough!
4. It can help you understand the bigger picture
There are many factors at play when it comes to someone’s work experience, such as their manager and division, departmental culture and their own personal attributes such as skills, knowledge, experience etc. So be aware that some people could have very different experiences than others at work when it comes to receiving feedback. Interview processes are especially subjective this way; one interviewer might go easy on someone while another might be more critical or harder on them during their interview process.
There will always be some level of subjectivity in receiving positive or negative feedback from others because they don’t know you personally and they don’t necessarily share your own experiences or perspectives on things. However, a lot of people tend to overestimate the subjectivity in other people’s feedback (as if everyone is looking out for reasons not to like us) while underestimating their own (as if no one would ever dislike us). This is simply not true in reality; chances are that most people don’t see things too differently from how they actually are (unless you have some kind of egregious personality flaw that almost nobody could stand). You need to learn how use other peoples’ feedback objectively without letting it unduly impact your outlook on things, so that it doesn’t affect your confidence or self-esteem negatively! People might have slightly different opinions about certain things but that doesn’t mean everyone dislikes you! Keep this perspective in mind when receiving feedback from others!
5. It can improve your self-awareness
Self-awareness is one of the most crucial aspects of high performance at work! Without understanding yourself well enough, it will be hard for you to develop yourself personally and professionally in an effective manner. Asking for feedback from others can significantly improve your self-awareness by giving you outside perspective on things that may or may not be fully apparent to you internally but are apparent enough for other people around you! It will also help broaden your perspective by showing you how other people perceive various situations rather than just looking at things through your own eyes alone!
If there is one skill every employee should learn well before moving up the ranks – it is self-awareness! It looks great on a resume (and shows potential employers that you know what good communication looks like) as well as helping you become a better human being because of it! Being self-aware means understanding both yourself (your strengths) as well as your struggles (what could use improvement) – so don’t be afraid of asking for feedback from others because it could potentially give valuable insight into areas where improvement is needed! Self-awareness gives us more information about ourselves so we can make more informed decisions about ourselves!
Have you ever asked for feedback? What are your thoughts on it?
