Humankind was made to desire success. Everybody wants to be successful. Everybody wants to see successful results of their work.
Same at work when you are on a project, same at home when you are trying to make a delicious meal. And the most satisfying feeling afterwards is when you get appreciated, which always is not the case at first couple of trials. We need to learn and we need to adapt. That is exactly why we are receiving feedbacks. So that we can understand how to make the outcome better and how to improve to be more and more successful. Keeping this in mind is the crucial step in understanding what feedback is and what it is used for. Feedback is when your friends tell the food was delicious, and also when your colleagues say you can improve on some specific parts of the project. This is how you learn and this is how you adapt. Unfortunately, it sometimes is not easy to give feedbacks just as receiving one. So here are five steps to help you give and receive feedback!
Step 1: Understand what feedback is! Just like mentioned above, feedback is there for help you. Always there could be a gap to be filled or even better a cherry on top of your delicious cake! If you want the work to be in use better, you should hear what your teammates say about it. Therefore, having the basis of the intention behind even in a not-so-well-given feedback would help you to hear what is actually said behind the words and make the actual point in use.
Step 2: Approach the feedback neutral. We all know how emotional it gets when you put all your work into something and waiting for an approval on your time and effort. On the other hand, approaching the feedback neutral would ease your way to get rid of little bumps on the way and smooth everything out since listening to the other side would be way easier.
Step 3: Always look for the steps to be taken afterwards. This also is a step to help you both understand the core meaning of the feedback and also getting some progress. Also, this step can include questions like “What would you do in this case?” to the feedback-giver and this way you can also gather deeper insight on approaching the future outcomes of the talk. Remember, all happens so that you can make progress on the work!
Step 4: Be patient and give time. This step can be interpreted in two ways. First, be patient while listening and give time to the feedback giver. So that you can clearly understand what s/he actually means. On the other side of the coin, you have to give time in your schedule for future improvements of the work. Don’t leave the feedback part to the very end because there is another step afterwards the feedback.
Step 5: Have a good path and just do it. Implementation of the final outcome can actually be fun! Just start doing it and both your friends and you will realize how much it helps. See what is needed after gathering the feedbacks, prioritize and get going. Congrats, now it is all good!
At WebGazer, we also are respectful while giving feedbacks and receiving them. Because this is what improves us and what gets things going. All part of a great teamwork! Keep it up!