Feedback is Our Superpower!
My 13 year-old son, Charlie, plays basketball on his school team. He's been playing on the team for a few years, and has loved basketball since he was first able to play with his big brothers. The pandemic shuttered all school-playing last year, and this year, he was eager to get back into it.
The season started in the fall with practices each Monday after school. When we picked him up from practice, Charlie was often quiet. A little glum. When I asked him what was up, he said that basketball wasn't really that fun this year.
He went on to say that all the (new) coach did was yell at him all the time. Charlie said he was frustrated because all the coach would say is "Charlie, you need to work on your dribbling.." or "Charlie you need to work on your passing..." And that was it. Charlie's frustration stemmed from the fact that he doesn't know what he's doing wrong. Or not doing. Just being told to "work on" something is not useful. Or productive. And, as with many of us, being yelled at all the time is not much fun and can be pretty demoralizing.
After the most recent practice, Charlie came out of the gym with a similar account the afternoon's events. And then he said, with a little bit of smile, well [the other coach] gave me a fist bump on the way out. So at least that.
A friend of mine once said that:
“feedback is a teacher’s superpower”.
And it’s true both in giving it, and not giving it. If you’re not giving people feedback then you are not utilizing your superpower to the best of your ability. As an expert, an educator, a leader, in any industry, in any context, you have the power to help others build their expertise.
To Learn.
To develop expertise you need a few things:
A lot of time and practice
You need to have a sense of where you’re going and what your goals are
You need to get specific feedback as to how you are doing
AND specific guidance on what you need to do, or to change, to close any gaps, and get where you need to go.
Another important aspect of feedback is encouragement. We need to know what we are doing right as well as what we're doing wrong. Because too much of what you’re doing wrong can be demoralizing. Just ask Charlie.
We often forget to give people positive feedback as well as the more critical, specific, constructive, corrective feedback.
It’s easy, when reviewing a paper, or project, or someone's performance, to focus comments on that which needs to be fixed, or what is not right. But we don’t always take the time to say "hey, I really like this part!" or "Your ball passing has really improved..." or 'I like how you have used color here to draw the learner's eye to the important points."
Perhaps we assume that others will interpret the absence of a negative statement as positive statement.
Not true.
The absence of a negative statement is just nothing.
We all need feedback to get better. To know how we're doing and progressing as we work toward a goal. It’s also HARD to get better at anything so we can’t ignore the motivational aspects of this.
As an expert, providing others with specific, clear, goal-oriented, actionable feedback in a trusting and anxiety-free environment is how you leverage your superpower.
And don't forget the fist bump.
I had the chance to talk to my friend and healthcare thought leader Marion Spears Karr about how we can best leverage our feedback-giving superpower. You can check out the recording here:
https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6894632944145637376/
Photo credit: Claire Painchaud
