How Feedback Can Accelerate Your Career

For many people, feedback has a negative connotation—namely, that it consists of sitting in an office and listening to your boss telling you everything you’re doing wrong. But for millennials who are just starting out, or only a few years into a career, feedback can be an invaluable tool for accelerating your professional development and getting you into a leadership position.

Here’s how feedback can help you, along with tips on how you can harness feedback to improve your professional standing and advance in your career.

Feedback helps you focus your goals

It’s easy to view feedback as a laundry list of things you’re doing wrong—but don’t fall for this discouraging perception. For the recipient, as well as the person giving the feedback, it’s simply a tool to point out how you can improve your opportunities for advancement.

Feedback is more than mistakes you can avoid (although those are worth noting). When receiving feedback, you should also hear about skills you can develop and qualities you can enhance—the things you’re doing right, that your supervisor would like to see more often. One of the most important values of feedback is the ability to help you stop wasting time, and start focusing on those areas that will get you noticed.

Rather than waiting for feedback to happen to you, the best strategy is to proactively seek feedback. When you ask to meet with your boss or supervisor to review your performance on a regular basis, you’re showing initiative to improve—an important and sought-after leadership quality.

The following tips will help you make the most of your feedback sessions and gain positive value from constructive criticism.

Lay the ground rules

Since you’re the one asking for feedback, you have the opportunity to ask for exactly the kind of feedback you want. Make it clear that you’re asking for constructive feedback in order to improve your performance, and state your goals. Whether you’re looking for a raise, a promotion, or general advice on getting ahead, providing specific goals can help your supervisor tailor the feedback accordingly.

Listen and take notes

Many people listen to feedback with an ear for the defensive—spending the whole time preparing a rebuttal to explain why the criticism is wrong. This type of defensive listening makes feedback worthless, because you’re not really hearing what is said. Instead, train yourself to contain those knee-jerk reactions and listen proactively to the advice being given. Identify opportunities for improvement, rather than the chance to defend your performance.

You should also take notes during feedback sessions. This not only helps you remember important advice, but also allows you to minimize the feeling of being judged by not looking directly at the person giving feedback all the time. Then you can review your notes later with an objective eye, while you’re not under the direct pressure of receiving feedback, and decide which parts are valid and useful.

Ask for clarification

If you find yourself getting defensive about certain feedback, resist the temptation to pounce. Instead, ask for specifics about the issue—you may be interpreting the feedback in the wrong way. This also turns your feedback session into a meaningful dialogue, instead of a one-way lecture.

And if you still feel the person offering feedback is wrong after the points are clarified, explain your own perspective on why you handled the issue the way you did—and ask for suggestions about how you could have done it differently.

End on a positive note

Toward the end of the feedback session, be sure to ask directly how you can improve your performance and achieve your career goals. This places the focus on future actions you can take, instead of mistakes you may have made in the past—which is beneficial for both you and your boss.

Finally, thank your boss or supervisor for taking the time to give you feedback. Chances are, they don’t enjoy giving performance reviews any more than you enjoy receiving them—so they’ll appreciate knowing that you’ll benefit from the information, and that you plan to implement their advice in your performance.

The Four Agreements

If you could only follow four rules for the rest of your life, these would be it! To live a happy life, follow these simple rules. Continue to remind yourself that it doesn’t have to be so complicated and follow these 4 agreements.

Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements, is a writer, teacher, and shaman. In his book he describes the Four Agreements as conscious decisions we make each day to become better versions of ourselves. They are to “Be Impeccable With Your Word”, “Don’t Take Anything Personally”, “Don’t Make Assumptions”, and “Always Do Your Best”. The agreements focus on the Toltec teachings that emphasize achieving happiness, peace, and love through attained wisdom.

Some great simple mantras to de-clutter your life and bring you to the right path.

Make Your Own Decisions Now

Life is all about the decisions you make. This article outlines some great way to make smarter choices. 6 Science-Backed Ways To Make Better Decisions

at launchbox we tell stories just like Seth Godin

The cure or the story?

The plumber, the roofer and the electrician sell us a cure. They come to our house, fix the problem, and leave.

The consultant, the doctor (often) and the politician sell us the narrative. They don’t always change things, but they give us a story, a way to think about what’s happening. Often, that story helps us fix our problems on our own.

The best parents, of course, are in the story business. Teachers and bosses, too.

Posted by Seth Godin on March 31, 201

 

 

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the real deal – check this out

We at launchbox believe the more direct the better.  This article’s assessment of real skills necessary to make it in the world is spot on.   For me personally, sometimes you find your twin who was separated from you at birth appears on the web with great wisdom.  Well here you go!  I think I would title it more positively, more like,

If you want to do something amazing  – get off your ass – this is america, define your dream everyday!  Get out of your box today.

Read the article, 7 reasons you’ll never do anything amazing.

Speaking in public, get over yourself!

Seth Godin get’s it right!

 

Speaking in public: two errors that lead to fear

1. You believe that you are being actively judged

2. You believe that the subject of the talk is you

When you stand up to give a speech, there’s a temptation to believe that the audience is actually interested in you.

This just isn’t true. (Or if it is, it doesn’t benefit you to think that it is).

You are not being judged, the value of what you are bringing to the audience is being judged. The topic of the talk isn’t you, the topic of the talk is the audience, and specifically, how they can use your experience and knowledge to achieve their objectives.

When a professional singer sings a song of heartbreak, his heart is not breaking in that moment. His performance is for you, not for him. (The infinite self-reference loop here is that the professional singer finds what he needs when you find what you need.)

The members of the audience are interested in themselves. The audience wants to know what they can use, what they can learn, or at the very least, how they can be entertained.

If you dive into your (irrelevant to the listener) personal hurdles, if you try to justify what you’ve done, if you find yourself aswirl in a whirlpool of the resistance, all you’re providing is a little schadenfreude as a form of entertainment.

On the other hand, if you realize that you have a chance to be generous in this moment, to teach and to lead, you can leave the self-doubt behind and speak a truth that the audience needs to hear. When you bring that to people who need it, your fear pales in comparison.

Media you choose to do is always about the audience. That’s why you’re doing it. The faster we get over ourselves, the sooner we can do a good job for those tuning in.

Hire Millennials because they ask the right questions…

Inc. Magazine says:

In my experience, millennials will ask the question “why” before they ask “what” or “how” because they want to get right to the point. They want to know if something is worth the investment first rather than diving in just because you tell them it’s a good idea.

That’s exactly the kind of fresh perspective you need if you’re developing a new app and why hiring a millennial makes sense. Maybe you’re not ready to have one lead your entire marketing effort or the sales team. But don’t be afraid to give them a chance to push your company ahead. They might just point out the one thing that really needs to change.

They are right millennials might be:

Text-messaging, multi-tasking, advertising-leery, Attention Deficit Disorder-loving, trendsetting, blog-reading, information-addicted, social media experts, tech-embracing, fast-moving, highly-ambitious, quick-talking, well-educated, IPOD-listening, authority questioning, and have the blushing confidence of expecting to go from mail room to board room in one day, want to live more passionately, be happy, kill the 9-5 PM job and really want it all from money to entertainment to charity.

But we believe that greatness can be managed by understanding their strengths and how they communicate.  Let them push you.  But push back through mentorship, training and learning that bridge the gap.

30 is not the new twenty …. the ted talk that every 20 something needs to hear

This video clip summarizes the launchbox movement.

If your 20 something please watch and listen to this and make sure as Meg Jay says you know:

http://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20.html?quote=2168

30 IS NOT THE NEW 20, CLAIM YOUR ADULTHOOD, FIND YOUR Identity Capital,  USE YOUR WEAK TIES, PICK YOUR FAMILY AND DON’T BE DEFINED BUT WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW OR DIDN’T DO …. YOUR DECIDING YOUR LIFE NOW!

Invest in yourself today…..

 

What would you do with your life if money was not the object?

My daughter sent me this great video from upworthy this morning.   The video is a 3 minute montage of the juxtaposition of what would you love to do vs. what does society do to condition our children to think they have to do? It made me reflect on what type of parent, mentor, coach and counselor I am.  Do I really counsel clients to follow their heart or am I pushing them to maximize their income?   Is one or the other necessarily bad in the world we live in?  Very interesting thought provoking questions.  Take a look.

Watch here