Feedback Strategies

When I give feedback, I often worry I will be too harsh and then end up probably being too nice in my feedback. However, I personally often prefer feedback that gives me something to grow on, even if I can be very self-conscious on what I write. I am hoping to take my own preferences into account more often when giving others feedback.

The first article I read for this assignment was The Difference Between Praise and Feedback by Anya Kamenetz. As I feel like I too often praise people instead of giving them valuable feedback, I thought this would be a valuable article which I could learn from. While the majority of the focus was on parents and their children, I still liked how it talked about feedback requiring time and effort to be meaningful, whereas praise is low cost but has more potential negative consequences. This made me think about how I need to realize that I may be harming the person more by sugarcoating my response instead of giving them truly beneficial feedback.

The second article I read was Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise? by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. I thought this was a really interesting article. I had no idea that so many managers avoid positive feedback altogether, though thinking back on all of the managers I've had I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. I thought it was also interesting how the employees rated managers higher who gave positive feedback yet so many mangers who only gave negative feedback thought they were extremely effective. I think this article helped me to learn that it is important to look for the good in things as well as the things that can be improved upon. After all, it was the managers who gave both positive and negative feedback that were rated the highest overall.

Thinking of these articles, and taking my own feedback experiences into account, I think I will try to make it a point this semester to make sure to give at least one piece of positive and negative feedback every time I give someone feedback. I hope that doing it this way will make the act become more natural after some practice.

Hand Writing the Word Feedback in Blue.

No Changes Made. By: Nick Youngson. Source: The Blue Diamond Gallery

Feedback Thoughts

As a person who used to be way more obsessed with straight As, I have had differing thoughts on feedback over the years. Up until my first year of college I had never gotten any grade lower than an A, yet when I got a B in Honors Calculus II my very first semester I was actually relieved. I had been so convinced I would get a C in the class that when I got a B, I forgot to be upset that I didn't get an A. While I am sometimes sad that I don't have the opportunity to graduate college with a 4.0 GPA, I think getting a B my first semester was actually very valuable to me because it took away so much potential stress from maintaining a 4.0. Losing it in the beginning meant I could then concentrate on just doing my best and not worry about perfection!

For this assignment, my favorite article that I read was How to Tame Your Inner Critic: A Simple Habit to Rewire Your Brain by Joel Almeida. I really enjoyed this article because I often consider myself to be my biggest critic, so reading an article where the author came from the same perspective and rewired their brain to overcome that gave me hope and and strategies to help prevent myself from being so critical. As this is my final college semester, I've been trying to just enjoy my time here and live in the moment, so I think the REBS technique outlined here will help with that.

The other article I read was Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head by Sabina Nawaz. I really enjoyed this article because I definitely have a problem with accepting positive feedback, so I think the tips outlined in this article will be helpful. I think forcing yourself to accept the positive feedback you get is just as crucial as learning how to not be so negative on yourself, so I think this article works well with the one talked about above. Besides the tips outlined in the article, I liked how an example was given with someone benefitting from this process. It is heartening to know these tips actually work and could help me.

Art of the Word Feedback with Colored Conversation Bubbles Above.

No Changes Made. Created by Gerd Altmann on 10-04-2018. Source: pixabay