Feedback is a triple-edged sword.
At least a triple-edged, perhaps multiple-edged.
Feedback and reflection on that feedback is one of the greatest ways for any of us to learn in any aspect of our lives or our work.
I will always return to football coaching, or even for the time that I was coached to be a better (less rubbish) triathlete. It was necessary to get feedback as objective as possible, without motivation or malice, just advice to try to get better.
One of the most extraordinary pieces of objective feedback in triathlon training that I ever received was to be filmed underwater while swimming in the pool at Loughborough University.
In my mind, I was a dolphin; in reality, people were throwing in their washing because they thought that I was a Zanussi 500 washing machine.
I write this because ever since we started (particularly in education), but also clinical and in all aspects of our work, we have embraced the concept of feedback as a driver for growth and improvement.
I instigated a 360-degree appraisal system (particularly for me) at such an early stage.
Sometimes it's painful, but it's always necessary.
The difficulty, though, is that not everyone takes feedback or gives feedback from the same perspective of honesty and improvement.
Some people use it as a weapon, and some people are thoughtless in the way that they provide it.
Others try to harm with feedback due to jealousy or disgruntlement, or other feelings of negativity.
When you're on the receiving end of feedback of that nature, it's hard to just pass it off in an emotional way, because for all of us, all the things we do are emotional.
It's necessary, though, to be able to filter the feedback that you receive, to try to understand the motivation and the basis of the feedback and then to frame the information that you receive as either useful or not useful.
Of course, the tendency goes in the other direction to refute or to deny any feedback that's counter to that which you want to hear, and so it becomes an extraordinary exercise in self-awareness.
We respond well to feedback generally as a group in the Campbell Clinic group (70 of us now), but it's a constant battle. Complaints from patients, comments from team staff, contractors, delegates, everyone has an opinion, everyone has a view.
We figured out a way to bring it all together: Does this reflect the core of our business? Are our values affected? Are we heading in the right direction?
The bigger you get, the more feedback you get or can receive, the more challenging it can become.
Blog Post Number - 4515
Leave a comment