We all know how important it is to get and receive feedback in your career…Yet, many of us usually wait until performance review time, or any other formally appointed time to use it. The downside to this is we only get to leverage the power of feedback once or twice a year, as opposed to using it to our advantage on a continuous basis.
I mean, feedback isn’t always exactly a piece of cake. Who wants to take the risk to hear about your performance, and possibly get some aspects of it criticized? It’s all fun and games until someone scratches your ego, and points out some mistakes you made, or ways you could improve your work, right? Especially when your paycheck depends on it…And even when it’s done to help you more than it is to hurt you…
Over time in my own career, I’ve learnt to fear feedback less, and actually seek it out more. Not to dread and avoid that time of the year when performance reviews come crashing down, but instead to look forward to it. To actually make feedback a part of my career on a consistent, continuous basis, rather than waiting for it with angst and stress…
There are many ways to leverage feedback into your career, but here are 7 ways I’ve found to be particularly effective throughout my career, and through precious advice I’ve received from mentors higher-ups and peers:
Schedule regular one-on-ones with your managers, mentors and peers
Some departments and companies already have the one-on-one process established. Yet if you happen to be in an environment that doesn’t, be proactive about scheduling one-on-one meetings with your managers, mentors and higher-ups.
These are checkpoint meetings you can schedule every week, or every couple of weeks, to provide updates as to your work status, and request or provide feedback on how you’re doing.
Get feedback on individual projects
Did you just complete a big project? Signed off on a huge audit? Get feedback on it! Obtaining feedback on individual projects allows you to re-calibrate and re-focus on time for the next project. It’s easy to go from project to project without really knowing what to improve.
Make sure to ask, even if casually, how you did on a single project, and what you can do improve the next time around. It’ll go a long way in showing you truly want to do better, but it’ll also provide you with valuable nuggets of information to take your performance to the next level.
Buy into the mentoring concept
If you don’t have a mentor or are not mentoring someone, you’re missing out! Period.
Seek out a mentor, or multiple mentors in and outside of your organization, and make it a point to reach out to them and seek feedback on a regular basis. Even better, become a mentor yourself. Whether you mentor one of your reports or one of your peers, or whether you become part of a reverse-mentoring arrangement (when you actually mentor someone in a more senior position), make sure to invest time and resources into mentoring!
Give and get peer reviews
I experienced peer mentoring early on in my career, and have to say it’s particularly powerful in getting the detail feedback some managers and higher-ups may miss when providing you with reviews.
While it can be challenging to get reviewed by a peer (think ego on fire), it’s also a practice that lends itself to teaching both you and your peer about effective leadership, and how to give and receive constructive criticism. This is especially important as it prepares you to deal with giving and receiving feedback to and from higher-ups.
Do you use any of these approaches to leverage feedback in your career?
To Your Success,
The Corporate Sis.
