<span style="font-weight: 400;">What does “Performance Feedback” mean to you?  A painful waste of time, or a great opportunity? Both have been said about the same experience. How? I’ve learned it is possible to find value in even the most poorly delivered evaluation, no matter where it comes from. We can all process feedback so we can benefit from it rather than reject critical comments.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">When I started facilitating workshops, my co-facilitator and I would distribute feedback forms and ask participants to tell us what their experience was like. Whenever I collected the sheets, my attention was pulled by a section where my performance was scored against my partner’s. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">I knew it would cause me pain (and wasn’t very fair), but I craved a message that </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">I was better</span></i> <i><span style="font-weight: 400;">than my partner</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> had been. No matter how non-competitive I might believe myself to be, if you put me in a ratings race with anyone, I want to </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">win</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">My typically higher scores in “preparation” didn’t satisfy my craving. I studied the ratings until I proved to myself that my partner had won the day.</span>

<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why would anybody listen to me? </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">I’d think. </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">I’ll never achieve anything. </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">While I indulged in this negative thinking, my productivity and sociability dropped away. But what’s the alternative?</span>
<h3><b>Cultivate curiosity about what people are ‘reading’ from you</b></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In their new book, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thanks-Feedback-Science-Receiving-Well/dp/0143127136/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1461861000&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=thanks+for+the+feedback" target="_blank">Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well</a></span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen advocate for developing skills in learning from feedback “even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and, frankly, you’re not in the mood.” Off base or unfair? Are they suggesting you change </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">everything </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">that others want you to change? </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">No, but everything you do communicates something about you, and your message will have an audience. Feedback lets you know what your “audience” is receiving. Is the information they are receiving (about either your content or about yourself) the information you want to convey? </span><a href="https://careerleadershipalignment.com/2015/07/17/feedback-zero-become-a-feedback-hero/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The only way you’ll ever know is by attending to feedback and learning how to interpret the clues you receive</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span>
<h3><b>Start where you are--wired for taking feedback the way </b><b><i>you </i></b><b>do</b></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Each of us is wired to take feedback in our own particular way. It’s not unusual for feedback to knock you off your game if :</span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">You feel it isn’t true (</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Truth)</span></i></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The person delivering it is the wrong person to say </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">that (Relationship)</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The feedback threatens your understanding of who you are </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">(Identity)</span></i></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This is where the workshop evaluations hit me the hardest: my sense of myself as a “really good facilitator.”</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">You will respond to feedback in your own signature way, characterized by how you feel and think generally and how you </span><a href="http://intentionalinsights.org/where-do-our-mental-maps-lead-us-astray"><span style="font-weight: 400;">process</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> feedback in particular. I was predisposed to dismiss positive feedback and to take negative feedback hard. I was also wired to recover more slowly from those hard hits. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Others might get </span><a href="https://careerleadershipalignment.com/2015/07/02/celebrating-small-wins-the-importance-of-baby-steps/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">a big boost from small compliments</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> but aren’t so bothered by criticism. Their default wiring might mean they are resistant to teaching or change because they don’t take constructive criticism seriously enough. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Once you know your default wiring, you can predict and manage your reactions and then develop better skills for receiving and interpreting feedback.</span>

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-29905 size-full" src="http://leadchangegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/I-want-to-learn-from-your-feedback.jpg" alt="I want to learn from your feedback, AND I want to be accepted for who I am" width="560" height="315" />
<h3><b>Grant yourself space to seek improvement</b></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Fortunately I discovered a path away from the darkness of comparison and into a healthier place. As it turns out, my strategy was in line with recommendations in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thanks for the Feedback. </span></i>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">I found a way to focus on my own numbers and compare them to previous feedback. Finally, the drug-like attraction of comparing myself to others eased. My anxiety shifted to </span><a href="https://careerleadershipalignment.com/2015/07/21/how-to-be-the-tortoise-that-wins/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">interest in my own development</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Over time I saw my numbers improving relative to my earlier scores. And, I learned to trust myself instead of craving external validation as my facilitation skills improved. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">You can set the stage for new growth and success by: </span>
<ol>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cultivating curiosity about what people are reading from you, </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Accepting and becoming familiar with your default settings for receiving feedback (your wiring), and </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Granting yourself permission to have room for improvement. </span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">You do not have to choose between the joy of being accepted and the challenge of learning from feedback. Both are possible together. Loving yourself enough to accept feedback without fear is a wonderful practice.</span>

"I want to learn from your feedback" image courtesy of Amy Kay Watson and <a href="https://careerleadershipalignment.com/" target="_blank">Career Leadership Alignment</a>.