It’s performance evaluation season. What do you do when you receive feedback you disagree with?
First, exhale. We can all get worked up when we think someone has an incorrect view of us. It is important to release the tension and anxiety you are feeling. Otherwise, all of the parts of your brain that you need to do something productive are being used to stress yourself out.
You can alleviate some of the tension by remembering that a part of feedback is always about the giver—about their hopes, worries, and fears. It’s not all about you.
Releasing the tension gives you your full cognitive capability to say, “I would like to respond to this feedback. Some of this feels great and spot on. Some of it feels off, and I am curious about how you see this playing out and its impact.”
Leading with curiosity is an opportunity to gather more information. And if it still doesn’t fit, let it go and pick the one or two pieces of feedback you received that are actionable and work with those.
If you can’t get to where you need to with your leader about the part of the feedback that feels wrong, don’t stick with it for too long. You can defend yourself only so many times before you sound… well, defensive.
Take the feedback you can work with and crush it in that area. The next time you have a performance conversation, circle back and say, “I never really got resolution on that piece you and I had some different feelings on—can we talk about where that stands now?”
You can choose to get stuck in the conversation. Or you can choose to demonstrate the curiosity required to grow a partnership.
Ask yourself–do you want to be right? Or do you want to be effective? If we stick with effective, we can grow from the feedback we identify with and put the other part on hold.
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Corey Jamison brings more than 30 years of experience partnering with executives and teams around the globe to drive dramatic, sustainable organizational transformation. She has worked with leaders at all levels of some of the largest brands, and offers a level of experience, acumen, partnership and courage that inspires leaders and teams toward the hard work of taking it to the next level.