About Feedback

Feedback – Breakfast of Champions? Really?

About 20 years ago, I was asked to facilitate a 360 feedback program for what was then Centura Bank here in N.C. Over the next year, I coached individuals as they received feedback from people all around them: direct reports, peers, bosses, themselves! In many instances, it was an emotional event that even brought tears.

People care deeply what others think.

And yet we know we have blind spots. Everyone does. And only someone with enough grit to tell you the truth can make you aware. Trust needs to be there–you know they have your back.

We know what we know; we know what we don’t know and rarely do we not know what we don’t know or don’t know what we know. It is the gift of feedback that opens our eyes in awareness so we can change.

So how did the session go?

The two being “focused on” video taped themselves and combined that with all the various feedback from the content of what they said to the way they said it to even the way they were dressed! It was a lot of information!

But these brave professionals took the top three items that would make the biggest difference and are working to address them now.

We’re thinking of anothergroup for the “after”!

I said feedback is for champions because it takes guts to hear what’s not working for others about you. Our egos can get in the way and we could begin to justify our behaviors or discount the value of the feedback. But those who look it straight in the eye are the ones who WIN and win big. They put that ego aside and focus in on being their absolute best professionally, knowing that others’ perceptions ARE their reality!