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The three secret questions that elicit (truly) helpful feedback
You hear it all the time: ‘Ask for feedback’.
A couple things to keep in mind when you do:
- Feedback is someone else’s experience of you. This doesn’t make it true. It’s a data point.
- When you find a pattern in that data…then it’s time to pay attention.
- The question you ask determines the quality of the answer.
This article focuses on bullet #3: The question you ask determines the quality of the answer.
During my corporate career, mid-year and year-end performance reviews were standard. As part of the typical performance cycle, employees were encouraged to ask for feedback from managers, peers, and direct reports.
Like most people, when I asked for feedback, the question was broad and covered a lengthy time horizon. And, the result was that the feedback was non-specific, non-actionable, and based on what individuals recalled. Usually what they recalled was based on emotion: something I had been part of that caused a negative response or a positive one.
That’s because the human brain remembers emotion: surprise, delight, fear, anger, etc. (The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath is a wonderful overview of the science).