Feedback Strategies

Last week, when talking about feedback I mostly stated that truth is the most important aspect when you are seeking to provide criticism to help others. However, I am also a firm believer that praise is an important part of feedback. Where criticism shows a person where they can improve, praise allows them to see where they are shining and provide a boost of confidence if needed. The issue, when providing feedback, is deciding how to balance out the two.

A common misconception about us millennials is that we are too expecting of praise. Older generations, and even some fellow people of our generation, believe that this expectancy is making us soft and our resulting work even worse. That is why it is important to only praise when it is deserved. In Maria Popova's article, Presence Not Praise: How to Cultivate a Health Relationship with Achievement, she quotes the mother of a Nobel prize-winner, who believes that praise is earned, and that unearned praised is irrelevant and does nothing for either party.

Marshall Goldsmith is also a firm believer of positive feedback. In his article, Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback, I especially loved that he emphasized that productivity can be improved with telling a person what they did right as opposed to proving to them what they did wrong. In my last article, I pointed out that honesty is very important when providing feedback, but only to a certain extent. There is a fine line between critiquing and chastising.

In the end, I stand by my previous belief that polite, but firm critique is necessary to develop good feedback, but after reading these articles, I now know that a reassuring gesture will go a long way just as well.

 

(A compliment goes a long way:

Me.me)

Feedback Thoughts

Being critiqued is always painful. It cannot be helped, when you think about it. You are lowering your defenses to allow an outside force to pick apart your work, whether for better or worse. Criticism, for some, is easier to take than others. I certainly fall under the latter. Coming out of high school, I was a perfectionist. I came to college with this closed mindset. Looking back, I do not know if it was due to egoism or low self esteem. I either thought that those who critiqued me knew nothing about anything, or I was too afraid to have somebody tell me that my work was anything less than perfect. I quickly learned that, in order to succeed and to improve in my studies, I had to learn how to accept constructive criticism. 

In the "Eight things students should do when they make a mistake" article, number four of the list states that we should learn from our mistakes and to better ourselves from it. I am a firm believer in the old adage of, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," and also believe that others should take it to heart. It encourages people to be unafraid of at least trying and that failure isn't the worse thing in the world.

Another thing that kept me from accepting criticism in the beginning of my college career was the sense of inferiority that I felt alongside many of my peers. I couldn't help but compare myself to the smartest people in my classes. In "The Psychology of Comparison and How to Stop", it tells us to exactly not to do that. The article talks about how, through human nature, we are all born to be competitive, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, once it begins to affect ones self-esteem, it becomes an unhealthy obsession. One saying that truly stood out to me in the article was "Don't Worry, You're Human." It teaches us that the only person that you should try to outshine everyday is yourself. 

(How I use to take any form of criticism:

Imgur)