Gracefully Accepting Feedback a Key Employment SkillWritten by Jan B. King
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behavior, so it is important to have simple words of gratitude prepared ahead of time. 3.Immediately write down all you can remember of feedback, recording as many words used by giver as possible. Allow yourself at least 2 days to process information, taking no action to change your perceived behavior. Watch what you do and how other react to it. After a few days, go back and look at your original notes. Take out emotion-packed words and look for basic message. 4.Know that feedback can be tough to receive, even if we solicit it and are grateful for it. Although it is simply another's perception, it can shake up your feelings about yourself. Plan to do something nice for yourself when you know you are facing tough feedback. Try to do something that bolsters self-esteem - dinner with friends, or engage in an activity that you are particularly good at. 5.Discuss feedback with friends or others whose opinions you respect, but ask them not to react to message. Tell them you are only looking for sympathy for difficulty of going through a rigorous self-development process, but that you don't want them to agree or disagree with feedback. It would be normal to want to invalidate negative feedback, and to get others to help you, but you will lose what may be a critical grain of truth if you do. 6.Use feedback in a positive way as soon as practical, not with giver, but with others. Over time you may even want to tell others to lightly remind you if you slip back to old ways. "Jack, I don't want to bug you, but you asked me to remind you if you started to get behind on those reports." You are ready to receive feedback when you: 1.Want to know yourself as others see you and you are clear that this is their perception, not necessarily what is true about you inside. 2.Trust your co-workers to care enough about your development to risk giving their opinion. 3.Have a place outside work you can talk it through. 4.Have opportunities for additional feedback so you get validation of changes you have made. Things you can do now to get more feedback at work: 1.Find out if your employer has a 360 degree review program or is willing to allow you to work with your human resources department to develop a feedback program tailored to you. 2.Look back at old performance reviews and see if there are common comments you can use. 3.Consider hiring a personal development coach to give you alternative methods of getting feedback, such as personality testing. 4.Decide to use feedback to get a promotion or change career direction so that you have a reason to get involved in process. As you get to know yourself better, feedback will become less painful. You learn how to put it into a larger perspective and how to allow it to help you achieve your dreams.
Jan B. King is the former President & CEO of Merritt Publishing, a top 50 woman-owned and run business in Los Angeles and the author of Business Plans to Game Plans: A Practical System for Turning Strategies into Action (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). She has helped hundreds of businesses with her book and her ebooks, The Do-It-Yourself Business Plan Workbook, and The Do-It-Yourself Game Plan Workbook. See www.janbking.com for more information.
| | Are you in AWE of your Employees?Written by Jan B. King
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Is Employee Engaged? This is highest level of employee involvement and commitment. These are employees who are engaged in work of company take initiative. They are problem-solvers and actively work out work problems, including inter-personal problems. They actively seek feedback about their performance. These employees are natural leaders and will lead in a project whether or not they have a management title – other just seem to follow them because of their willingness to take risks or because of their demonstrated expertise. They also look outside company for sources of good ideas and are always setting goals to take their own work to next level. They like to learn and will look for opportunities to take on new tasks to learn new skills. These employees give 100% because they are motivated to do so internally. It is only if a company gets in way of superior performance that these employees will stop working at highest level. If they become frustrated that management does not support their efforts to raise performance bar in company, they will disengage and eventually leave. Final Comment Employees who are not able to do job shouldn’t be offered continued employment. If you can create open communications with employees who seem unwilling, you can often turn around their performance. Your best point of leverage is taking employees who are willing and helping them become employees who are engaged. The best way to do that is to have plenty of engaged employees around. Their work behavior can be infectious. And get out of way of engaged employees. They want room to run and will only leave if micromanaged or not allowed room to experiment with new ideas. Follow these few simple ideas and you will be in AWE of contributions made by your employees to prosperity of your business.
Jan B. King is the former President & CEO of Merritt Publishing, a top 50 woman-owned and run business in Los Angeles and the author of Business Plans to Game Plans: A Practical System for Turning Strategies into Action (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). She has helped hundreds of businesses with her book and her ebooks, The Do-It-Yourself Business Plan Workbook, and The Do-It-Yourself Game Plan Workbook. See www.janbking.com for more information.
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