Dear Readers,

I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “feedback” I cringe inwardly and usually brace myself to receive the (surely negative) words coming my way.

However, like so many things, it seems to me that it’s all in how you frame it.

If you are expecting negativity, you will likely hear whatever someone says as negativity even if they are pouring sunshine and rainbows your way.

If you are expecting to hear positive things you will tend to frame it that way, even if someone is saying fairly harsh things.

If you are asking someone you trust and admire for feedback and choose to get defensive, you miss a great opportunity to gain something important amidst your own inability to listen openly or your own attachment to your work.

Conversely, if someone gives you feedback that you aren’t welcoming or expecting it can really affect your ability to take it in.

I think there is a very large gap between when you ask someone for feedback and when they just offer it. It’s all about asking for the permission.

Feedback typically means you can’t change the outcome, it’s already happened and that can tend to make you feel pretty defeated. Feedforward has such a proactive stance and it’s absolutely something you can apply.

I can definitely say I feel better about the phrasing, “Something I would try…” or “Based on what I see, I suggest” because it leaves the control in the hands of the person you are advising.

I am in the process of asking for a LOT of feedback on a personal project and it’s a humbling experience to be open and asking people for it continuously, taking the feedback and then applying it, and then asking for more feedforward.

This process is growing me and teaching me things about how and when and in what fashion to give my own dose of feeedback/feedforward when I next get the permission and opportunity.

What do you do with feedback? Take it? Reject it? A mix of both?

Think About It….