How Do You Receive Feedback? June 18, 2015 – Posted in: Leaders and Teams – Tags: advice, change, coaching, confidence, failure, fear, goals, growth, Personal Development, professional development

I was recently in London, running a corporate workshop on how to give and receive feedback effectively. It was a brilliant day with some wonderful people and I think I learnt as much as they did.

What’s interesting is that wherever I go I encounter the same communication stumbling blocks in the people I meet. A key block on Friday was the sense that it’s somehow bad to get something wrong. And when we believe something is bad we tend to react defensively.

But, what if we were to receive feedback within a different frame? What if we believed that well-intentioned (carefully worded, well timed) feedback was actually for our good and our growth? What if we received the feedback, measured it against our truth and allowed it to help us change if we feel we need to? Suddenly feedback becomes a more positive force in our lives…

Like everyone I have good traits and bad but my teachability is something I treasure because it has allowed me to grow and change. It’s enabled me to overcome some of my most self-defeating behaviours and helps me to see myself as a work in progress.

Teachability, founded on decent self-esteem, enables us to receive and respond to feedback rather than react with anger and self-righteousness.

Easy? No!

Worth developing? ABSOLUTELY YES!