 Wondering how you're doing at work? Looking for a little feedback? Have you tried asking? Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. Last time we talked about getting the right mindset for giving feedback and because working on a team is a two-way street we also need to think about the feedback we receive from others and how we react to it. Just as with giving feedback it helps to be in a healthy mindset to receive feedback and we can develop this mindset by consciously considering why we want feedback, who we ask for feedback, and what we do with the feedback we receive. Feedback is how we know if we're effective at meeting our goals and building relationships with others both on and off our team and we can't just tell how we're doing in these areas with objective metrics. We need to ask other people for a personal perspective to help us get out of our own heads. Most people receive periodic performance reviews and formal feedback about once a year but we really need to solicit regular feedback much more often from others. The reality is is that everyone's really busy these days and unless we go out and ask for it most people don't have the time to provide thorough thoughtful feedback unless we ask for it. There are a number of sources you can go to to ask for feedback. The first is your own team and they're a great source on how well your team is accomplishing your mission and if things are going smoothly or if they're struggling. If you formally supervise the members of your team this could result in a communication barrier where your team members tell you what they think you want to hear so remember to keep asking open-ended questions that can't be answered with a yes or no and continue to drill down to get to their genuine perspective. Your superiors are often the best source of feedback on how well you're meeting the expectations they have for you but bosses can be very busy people and unless you're able to pin them down for a session of a half an hour or more you may only get surface-level feedback. Now peers might be your best source of feedback in general. There's no communication barrier of a boss-employee relationship and here you can often get the most direct and candid feedback. Finally, mentors are also a great source of feedback from someone who's more seasoned and experienced than you are. There's usually no boss-employee relationship to be a communication barrier but they also tend to be very busy people so take that into consideration. Don't worry about the quality of feedback you get at first, initially it's just important to ask. If things don't make sense or you're having trouble understanding the feedback follow up and get clarification from the person who gave it to you. We can ask for feedback both formally and informally and both have their merits. Formal feedback is when we ask someone to come sit down with us and have a meeting to give us feedback. The advantage here is we both get time to prepare but it can also result in some filters being put on the conversation. Also, everyone's really busy these days so it can be hard to find the time for a long session of feedback but if it's important we'll make the time. Informal feedback is when we're just kind of out and about and kind of ask people for some feedback. The advantage to this is that they're often in their own environment where they feel comfortable and confident but if you try to do this in front of a big group people may not be willing to speak up. The other disadvantage is that people are just going through whatever's going on in their lives that day and so if someone's having a bad day you might get some biased feedback. It's important that we use both a combination of formal and informal feedback to determine how well we're accomplishing our mission and how well we're performing as leaders. So here are some final tips for you as you're getting ready to go receive that feedback. First, it's important to be in the right mindset to receive feedback as a mentor of mine used to say don't ask the question if you can't handle the answer. It's also important to be open-minded, listen to the feedback and accept it as it comes. Don't be reactive or defensive except in very urgent situations there's no need to act right away. If someone's being offensive or abusive that does need to be addressed but address that behavior and not the feedback itself. Also take all of the feedback you get from everybody into the big picture and act from that perspective. If you take nothing else away from all of this remember that feedback is important to evaluating ourselves and how well our team is doing and that if we don't ask we're never going to get appropriate feedback. If you found this helpful don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook and join us every Friday at 10 a.m Pacific time for an interactive leadership discussion on Blab. Also don't forget to click that globe off to the right that'll get you subscribed to our email list and bring all of our content direct to your inbox. I want to thank you for watching I appreciate it and remember the future is out there. Lead the way.