The Gift Of Feedback

People keep saying feedback is a gift. And as the recipient of feedback, that's a good approach to take. If someone goes out of their way to give you feedback you should at least think about it. You certainly had enough of an impact to make the person take the time to provide the feedback, so take the time to consider it.

But what do you do if you're not getting feedback. You could assume you're perfect. That would be nice, but really? I know I'm not perfect so I have to ask. It's also built in to our perf process, so it must be important, right? So how do you effectively ask for feedback? How do you get someone to provide their valuable time to help you? I've found a couple of things that help.

First, enlightened self interest is a great motivator. Don't just ask for feedback, explain that you want to make <insert area here> better for the person and you want their feedback on how you could do a better job doing that that you do.

Second, generally speaking, people want to help. So ask for advice, not feedback. Feedback is work and critical. Advice is easy and helpful.

So, practicing what I'm saying, I want these little notes to be interesting and impactful for you, the reader. What advice can you give me to make these notes more useful for you?