How To Get The Feedback You Need At Work

I am a huge proponent of feedback. It’s what you need to improve your performance. You have to know how you’re doing and where you can improve. I love the Ken Blanchard quote that “feedback is the breakfast of champions.” Unfortunately, organizational life is often starving for feedback. And when you do get it, it’s not really the right kind anyway. It’s usually just that annual review where everyone is jockeying for position and trying to get on some “high potential” list.

It’s not all that effective.

But if you want to improve — if you want to grow — then you want to make sure that you are continuously improving your performance by getting feedback more frequently. A number of years ago, I developed a simple trick for getting that feedback. And by developed, I mean stole and adapted. I’ve just forgotten where I stole it from. I was unsatisfied with the semi-annual cycle of teaching a whole class and only after the term was over, getting student feedback from the course. So mid-way through the semester I took a class session and handed each student a piece of paper with 3 simple questions on it.

What is something that I’m not doing that you wish I would start doing?

What is something that I’m doing that you wish I would stop doing?