Judging is GOOD

What is feedback and why is it important?

Effective feedback builds trust in relationships, prevents problems escalating into conflict, motivates individuals and promotes personal growth, and essentially is the prime manifestation of self-assertiveness/vulnerability a core muscle - source of internal validation - of our selfesteem.

Sadly, it more typically evokes memories of aggressive criticism and is generally perceived as something to be avoided.

Feedback:

1) is a way to let people know how effective they are in what they are trying to accomplish, so they can become more effective in the future; and

2) enables us to learn things about ourselves that we couldn’t learn otherwise.

There are three types of feedback:

• Positive feedback encourages, promotes strengths, improves morale, and ensures the person can repeat the things that work well. (Receiving only positive feedback creates a skewed reality. People are left with false impressions of their effectiveness.)

• Negative feedback, if given well, provides insights, increases self-awareness and is a springboard for development. (Receiving only negative feedback can be ultimately demoralizing, knocks self-esteem and creates a distorted reality.)

• No feedback at all is easiest, but potentially most damaging. No progress is made, no learning acquired. For good or bad, people continue to do what they have always done.

Developing a mindset for feedback

If feedback is something given to you to enable your development, it helps to think of it as a gift. What is the process you go through to give a gift?

• Ensure the gift is appropriate. What is the value to the receiver? Will the receiver gain learning to improve performance? Are you doing this for the receiver’s benefit or to ‘get something off your chest’?

• Choose it carefully. Have you thought it through with the needs of the receiver in mind? Have you accurate observations to support your feedback?

• Give the gift at the right time. Is the receiver ready, willing and able to accept feedback now? Or is the timing just to suit you?

• Give the gift graciously. Are you mentally prepared to give feedback (not angry or upset)?

• Take responsibility. You gave it! If it’s not right, be willing to make it right.

There was a wise Zen master. a scholar came to visit the master for advice. “I have come to ask you to teach me about Zen,” the scholar said.

They sat down and he shared his stories anxiously. The master calmly suggested that they should have tea.

So the master poured his guest a cup. The cup was filled, yet he kept pouring until the cup overflowed onto the table, onto the floor, and finally onto the scholar’s robes. The scholar cried “Stop! The cup is full already. Can’t you see?”

“Exactly,” the Zen master replied with a smile. “You are like this cup — so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in. Come back to me with an empty cup.”

I try to say “thank you” whenever someone gives me a piece of advice/input. Even if I don’t feel like receiving advice from someone, thanking the person causes me to internally become more open to listening to what they have to say.

If the person provides feedback such as “Your ideas are wrong”, thank the person and ask them to elaborate. Whether or not they choose to do so is up to them, but at least you’ll have opened up a channel for discussion and sharing.

So consider new thoughts and opinions. Even if you disagree, at least you can understand the basis behind them.

Bruce Lee sums it up nicely: “Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.”