Feedback is such a natural thing that happens in our daily life. Sometimes it is so natural that we don’t even notice it.
Take a simple example of getting a glass of water to drink. First you need to place the glass below the faucet. The eyes have to provide feedback to the brain about the position of the glass and the brain has to then provide instructions to the hand to make the necessary changes to the position. The feedback loop continues until you are satisfied with the position of the glass below the faucet.
This does not end. Once you open the faucet, when will you stop it? Just before the water overflows. How do you know? Again – the same feedback mechanism.
Feedback is integral if we want to survive and thrive.
If you don’t get enough feedback, all you have to do is ASK.
Personal example – I requested feedback for my keynote address at the Services Strategies Summit at Las Vegas. The wonderful folks over there compiled detailed feedback for the session and sent it over to me yesterday. I have provided the entire feedback below:
First, from the organizers:
“Rajesh, the presentation was excellent and many people commented on it throughout the conference. Thank you for taking the time to participate. We very much appreciate it.”
Next, from the attendees:
* Great! Have taken/used Rajesh’s personal branding. Very good. Somewhat hard to understand.
• Great presentation… very pleasantly surprised!
• Very motivational
• Thoughtfully great starting point.
• Interesting perspective ‐ refreshing content ‐ not the usual presentation material (which is a nice change).
• Great presentation with solid content. Perfect position in the agenda as Rajesh “opened” everyone’s mind with his positive presentation.
• Many take always and thought inspiration.
• It was better than I expected. Great beginning to summit.
• A very good input to this side of the seminar.
• Very engaging ‐ excellent use of personal stories to bring audience along the journey. Enjoyed concept of “reframing questions” and “what matters” graph.
• Very nice opening to the conference. Well done.
• Great messages, good takeaways and applicable/useful right away. Set the stage for “connections” and networking at this conference.
• It was a good session overall, but I didn’t think it really fit as the keynote. Too interactive for the size of the group. Concepts were good, but difficult to follow in a large group.
• Interesting material presented in an unusual manner and style
• Thought provoking. Interesting concepts. Lost a little energy towards the end.
• Started out slow, but a good message overall.
• Very good, very useful information for all of us. These relationships and contacts are key. Ben Stephens is the poster child for contact management. His emails and calls always bring value.
• Language was a bit of a barrier. If the speaker spoke more strongly, it would help quite a bit.
• Very interesting issues.
• Interesting topic. Not innovative, but always valuable to revisit.
• Always useful to review the basics and take stock of what’s in your control.
• Very informative, great topic to start the conference with. A bit of a language barrier in hearing and understanding the speaker.
• It was very difficult to understand Rajesh at times and therefore it was difficult to keep up with his presentation. I thought the concept/content of his presentation was good.
As you can see there is a room for improvement and I also know where exactly I need to improve to take my game to the next level. Without this feedback, it would be pure speculation but now my actions will be more grounded.
Thanks to the John, Greg, David, Tara and other wonderful people at Services Strategies for providing a detailed feedback.