The Gift of Feedback
You may have heard of the saying ‘Same old thinking, same old results’ We definitely think that this saying rings true and as a People Manager, this is the loop you will be stuck in if you’ve never asked for feedback. By ‘feedback’ we don’t mean ‘pat on the back’ necessarily! Of course, everyone likes being given compliments, and told they are doing a great job or are a great manager. This will certainly boost your ego, your confidence and your self-worth, so what is wrong with that? Absolutely nothing! But…as a new People Manager you should not only be looking to do the best job you can do now but starting to look for opportunities for how to grow into your role and improve your skills and competencies. How will this be possible if you only hear good feedback from others? Can you identify areas for improvement in yourself? Even the most self-critical person might struggle to be objective enough to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
This is why constructive feedback, delivered in the right way shouldn’t offend the receiver, dent their confidence or tell a bad story about their achievements. It should be accepted as a gift as real motivation to improve performance (ok so it might start off being a gift you’d like to return, but don’t be hasty!). Learn to ask for feedback and accept it as productive and not punitive.
If you never seek out feedback from your team members, your peers or your reports — you’ll find that you’ll be operating in a vacuum — out of touch with the many opportunities it could bring for you to adapt, change and perform better in your role. Feedback, if it is specific and example-based, is not only in your best interests to help you develop, but can also be in the interest of the organisation that you work for. It enables you to perform according to the expectations the organisation has from you, and offers you a real benchmark to know if you’re on the right track or need to course-correct, do something differently, or simply keep doing something well.
When you ask for feedback, whether it’s face-to-face, in an email, a survey or a 360 feedback tool, try to ask specific questions to help the provider articulate something that will be useful to you. Asking “am I a good manager?” will probably result in a yes/no response, but asking “what do I do well as your Manager, and what could I do better”, for example, will give the respondent the opportunity to give specific detail that is much more meaningful for you. It’s also important that you pitch the feedback request correctly: share your intent, by saying that the feedback they provide is to help you improve, and not to make them feel uncomfortable being put on the spot! As a People Manager you will be (should be!) regularly giving your team members feedback to help with their development, so it’s good practise to extend the same process to help your own career-growth.
On the other hand, you might feel like the feedback you receive doesn’t exactly seem like a gift! It might be negative feedback, or feedback that you might not necessarily want to hear. The important thing is what you do with it. You have requested it, and hopefully it is based on actual behaviours or examples that you have demonstrated as a Manager. Try not to immediately criticise it, disregard it or try to justify it. Take some time to understand the perspective of the feedback-giver — if necessary discuss it with them, or work out whether it is something you want to act on to improve your performance. If you ignore it and make no changes, the chances are it will continue to be feedback that you receive going forward and you will be missing a golden opportunity to adapt, grow and develop in your role.
By receiving feedback on yourself, you’ll find that instead of ‘same old thinking, same old results’, you’ll be able to constantly learn and improve yourself as a People Manager.
