Asking for and taking unsolicited feedback is the most important and underused professional growth tool available.

Few have acquired the skill of providing helpful feedback.  So it is going to fall on you to learn to ask for or listen to feedback poorly delivered and learn from it. Customer service education first helped popularize the thinking that “perception is reality”.  And this is essentially the point.  Your reasons for doing something are not relevant.  The way people percieve what you did, or how you did it is what matters and where you can learn from input.

Think of the experience this way.  The way people “take something” or “experience something” is the result of something you said or did.  This is why apologizing is often more important than you think—you didn’t mean ill so you think you shouldn’t have to apologize.  This is not the point.  Your actions created an impression—and that often needs to be noted.  You didn’t mean to insult someone—but you did.  You didn’t mean to act rudely but you did—you did simply because someone responded that way.

This is a profound insight—not original to me of course—but profound.  If you understand this point, you can then realize that even though you did something or created something with the very best of intentions it can still be a problem that requires solving.   Two public cases of this happened within the last week—the congressman who called the President a liar and Serena Williams at the US Open Tennis Tournament appearing to be mishandling a call in her game.  Both apologized ending (for most) the controversies.

Here’s my suggestion for getting better at taking feedback.  First, listen without defending.   The next time today or this week someone “accuses you” of something or suggests you were off base, insensitive, off target, missing the point, or generally clueless  ASK A QUESTION rather than defend yourself.

Sample: “Amy, help me understand what I did, said, or implied and how I could have done better?”  OR, “Jason, tell me what would have been a better way for me to do what I did?”   Take the advice, file it for next time and USE it.  Thank the person for the feedback and leave it there.  That is the toughest part—just leaving it there.