“Stop asking for feedback.”
I read this Harvard Business Review article yesterday, the title catching my eye because I do ask for feedback. According to the article feedback has little to no impact on performance, and in fact, can even hurt performance in some cases.
“For women in particular, feedback can be unhelpful. One study conducted by professors Shelley Correll and Caroline Simard at Standard University analyzed over 200 performance reviews across three high-tech companies and a professional services firm. It found that, compared to men, women received feedback that was less likely to be tied to business outcomes and was also more vague and challenging to implement.”
The core of the article argued that because feedback is backward-looking and makes it harder to focus on the future rather than dwelling on past mistakes. Instead of asking for feedback, ask for advice.
“The researchers posited that advice-giving leads one to think about future actions that the person in need of guidance could take. As such, when asked to give advice, people are more likely to think critically and specifically about strategies the person could do to improve.”
I really like this nuance. It is important to me to keep growing and learning, but I’ve never thought about the way I ask for feedback before and how using ‘advice’ instead puts people in a different frame of mind to help your performance going forwards. The article goes on to give a few tips on how to ask for advice (it’s a short piece and worth the read). This is something I’m going to try to implement in the future and add to my work’s internal leadership training where we spend time talking about giving and receiving feedback.
With Love,
Natalie