Moe and Anna discuss how to give everyday feedback to speed up your team’s success.
Why Feedback is Oxygen to Never-Ending Growth
In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell reminds us that “insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.” Knowing that, I’ve always made it my highest priority to listen intently to the feedback of others; and its the reason why the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop has been at the core of the modern Lean Startup model.
The great irony behind feedback is that at some point, we all seek it at an unconscious level, still its a relative minority who are open to its potential criticism. Observe an elite athlete or entrepreneur, and you’ll likely notice an individual who’s suspicious of her own solution, largely due to her relentless pursuit of market validation. “I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.” Elon Musk said, “I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”
In her book, The Feedback Imperative, Anna Carroll gives this six-step blueprint towards improving your everyday feedback; and it starts with having immense clarity when answering this question.