Second Reading: Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head
Third Reading: Be a Mirror: Give Readers Feedback That Fosters a Growth Mindset
Fourth Reading: 7 Key Characteristics of Better Learning Feedback
Personally, I found the first reading that I did to be the most insightful because it describes the roadblocks that keep us from receiving and using feedback. I think that even if you do receive the best feedback possible, if you're not open and willing to accept that feedback, then that feedback won't be of any use to you. One of the leadership principles that all Marines, enlisted or officer, are required to learn is "know yourself and seek self improvement." Basically, with this principle, every Marine must recognize and realize their own deficiencies so that they may improve upon their deficiencies and enhance themselves and their unit. In the first reading, it describes the various factors that contribute to our willingness or lack thereof to take feedback and then apply it in a constructive way.
Another thing that I took from this first reading was the way in which high vs. low self-esteem people are likely to give feedback. In addition to knowing yourself and using your own self-awareness in order to enhance your feedback-receiving process, I think one could use this information in order to get constructive feedback from both high and low self-esteem people. Given what we know about both types of people, we could tailor our feedback-receiving processes so that we acquire the type of feedback that we need without wondering if there was a social desirability bias going on.
As for strategies that I'd like to try out, there was the have five positive voices for every one negative voice. I like this, because as humans, we tend to dwell on the negative and give negative experiences much more weight than we do positive experiences. What I also found helpful was how the article stated that there is great potential in becoming more productive if we amplify our strengths. More often than not, I find myself focusing on improving my deficiencies, because I assume that my strong points are solid and thus, do not need as much attention. Although our deficiencies shouldn't be ignored, I think that this article has a good point. Again, it comes back to knowing yourself and seeking improvement.
What I liked about the Be a Mirror article was how it gave ways in which to improve how we give feedback. I've never really thought too much into this, however, a lot of the daily feedback we get is too vague to act on. Although we might get told that we did something right or wrong, most people simply stop there and either think "yeah" or "dang." They never really find out what they did right or wrong and thus, they're stuck in the same boat as everyone else. In the article, it details the five qualities that are used in order to foster a growth mindset. These qualities make it possible for one to engage the feedback process as if you were a mirror, which makes you reflective and not critical, because after all, a mirror only shows what is in front of it.
The last article that read, entitled 7 Key Characteristics of Better Learning Feedback, was supplemental to the third article that I read. I say this because, in addition to the five qualities above, this article adds in the time element. Video games give us instantaneous feedback and this is why the most successful video games allow us to retry and restart as soon as we perish in the game. Also, we all know how forgetful we humans are and this makes the time element that much more important! As the article describes, the more timely we give feedback, the better. You don't want to give feedback on something that occurred weeks or months later, but rather you want to give feedback hours or days later, depending on the occurrence of course. For me, when feedback is given more than a couple days later on anything, I discard it, because I forgot most of what I did initially anyway. With these articles in mind, I have confidence that in the future, I will be able to give and receive feedback in more beneficial ways.
Image: 360 degree feedback
No comments:
Post a Comment