Preparation Makes Perfect
Own Your Feedback (Part 3)
This is part 3 of a series on receiving feedback.
I wrote this series because I want you to feel empowered to receive the data you need to improve, even if your peers and managers aren’t offering it freely. I want to help you understand that the feedback you receive, even if it’s hurtful or poorly delivered, is yours. You can love it, hate it, throw it away, or be curious about it, but it’s yours to use and learn from.
If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series, you can look at the prompts below and click through the links that are relevant to you:
If your peers and manager aren’t giving you regular quality feedback, ask for it (part 1).
If their feedback isn’t specific or actionable, clarify and ask questions (part 2). Help them translate their observations into actions.
If their feedback is hurtful or insensitive, paraphrase it for them. Let them hear what you heard.
This post is about using preparation to set you up for a productive feedback conversation, regardless of the role or experience of your counterpart.
Preparation
The most productive conversations happen when all parties are well educated on the subject matter. In a feedback conversation where you’re the recipient, the subject is you. Give your teammate time to understand your request and prepare their response. Give yourself time to become an expert on yourself.
Ask for feedback in writing.
Your goal in preparing the feedback-giver is to make it as easy as possible for them to come up with and deliver quality feedback. You can do this by making clear requests in writing and sending them reminders.
First, propose the feedback meeting in person or via messenger. This is an optional step that you can take before arranging any meeting in case the other party has a time preference.
“Hey, I’m going to schedule a 1:1 this week. Would love some feedback on how I ran project X.”
Then, send a calendar invite with a clear description. I consider this a mandatory step. The calendar event is the ideal place to record the goals and agenda of any meeting. A good thumb rule - help your teammate find your feedback request with as few clicks as possible.
1:1 Agenda:
Talk about this quarter’s roadmap.
Talk about hiring.
Share feedback with Padmini on how she ran project X, specifically:
Did she communicate well?
Did the project delays make sense?
What are her top areas of improvement?
If they don’t respond to the calendar invite, remind them. I do this unless I know my teammate well enough and trust them to pull through in the last minute.
“Hey, just want to make sure you saw the calendar invite for tomorrow’s meeting. Looking forward to the feedback.”
Don’t let the fear of coming across as annoying prevent you from sending reminders. As the requestor and main beneficiary of the feedback, take it as your responsibility to remind them.
Prepare a self-review.
How do you think you’re performing in your current role? Do you understand all the expectations? Which expectations are you meeting? Which ones aren’t you meeting?
Are there any responsibilities that you’re unsure about? Who do you need to ask in order to gain more clarity?
What are your career goals right now? Do you know how to achieve them? Are you making progress?
Is there a skill you’re actively working on improving? Do you notice any improvement? Do you need help from others in improving this skill?
If you just took on new responsibilities, how are those going? What mistakes have you made? What have you learned?
Your self-review is your evaluation of how you’re performing at work. View yourself as a scientist and your self-review as your research project. Pick a question and dig for answers. Find evidence in old emails, documents, and any other recorded transactions. If there’s a conflict between your initial answer and the evidence you find, change your answer. If one question leads to more questions, search for answers to those as well.
If you want feedback on how you led project X, prepare a self-review around how you led project X. What did you do well? What metrics did you use to determine whether you were successful? What would you do differently if you had to repeat the project?
Write down your self-review and have it in front of you during the meeting. Feedback meetings can be stressful and consume mental bandwidth. Written notes will give you a chance to pause and reconnect with the purpose of the meeting.
After conducting a thorough self-review, you may find that you have enough information to make improvements without feedback from anyone else. I would still recommend having the feedback conversations to collect different perspectives. In the very least, summarize your self-review to your manager so they can understand how to support you.
Let your teammate speak first.
Your self-review, if shared first, will color your teammate’s perspective of how you’re doing:
The anchoring effect may cause them to fixate on your statements and express their views only as deviations from your original statements.
The priming effect may prompt them to speak only to themes that you covered, and leave out others.
Their human need to be accepted by you may prevent them from sharing that they disagree with your self-review. They may view the decision to share their disagreement as a choice between harmony and honesty.
Let your teammate share their feedback first before you lead the conversation towards areas you’d like to focus on.
Use your self-review to lead the conversation.
Read more about leading in part 2.
Once you receive feedback from your teammate, clarify and ask questions. With your self-review in front of you, lead the conversation towards areas you’d like more data on. Your self-review will help you get further in your conversation.
Example, without self-review:
Teammate: I’ve highlighted a few areas of improvement in how you led project X. The first is that you missed some edge cases that caused the project to ship past the deadline.
Without Self-Review: You’ve observed that I missed some edge cases that delayed the project. I agree. I will figure out how to do better next time.
Example, with self-review:
Teammate: I’ve highlighted a few areas of improvement in how you led project X. The first is that you missed some edge cases that caused the project to ship past the deadline.
Using Self-Review: You’ve observed that I missed some edge cases that delayed the project. I agree, and I have an idea of why that happened. I did not include a few stakeholders in the kick-off meeting, so they weren’t aware of what we were building until later on.
Teammate: That makes sense to me. Is the solution to include them earlier on?
Using Self-Review: Yes. Could I run the kick-off invite list by you next time, to double check that I invited the right people?
Teammate: Yes!
Conclusion
Don’t make the mistake of waiting for feedback. You can get the feedback you need right now if you ask and prepare.
Prepare your teammate for a productive conversation by sending them a request for feedback in writing. Use calendar events and reminders to help them fulfill your request as best they can.
Prepare yourself by becoming an expert on the most important subject matter you’ll ever study - yourself.
Claim responsibility for receiving quality feedback and you’ll get it.
In the next post, I’ll talk about why feedback can be painful.
Other posts in this series:
Part 1: Receive Better Feedback by Asking - describes why and how to ask for feedback
Part 2: Listen, Lead, and Grow - describes how to listen and ask questions during a feedback conversation
Part 4: You Are Not a High-Performer - describes how feedback can be challenging to receive because it challenges our labels.
If you have a moment, I’d appreciate some feedback on this post so I can tune my content and improve my writing. Answer any questions you’re comfortable with or have time for (Yes/No answers are fine):
After reading this, do you feel more confident about getting the feedback you need?
After reading this, do you see the value of writing a self-review?
After reading this, do you feel more motivated to ask for feedback?
Thank you Melvin, Meeta, Max, Nicolas, Mo, and Kristin for your reviews and edits of this post!