How can you improve your performance by actively listening for feedback?

Active listening is specifically important during Recruiting. When listening to candidates, you may find that they will not fit in the role that you/they initially had in mind, but another will meet their needs in a more fulfilling way. This is crucial for retention and the candidate's long-term happiness.

In my experience, active listening is just like reading an article or a book you must start with the title of the book. The title is the genesis of the direction or topic. The title of the discussion or the person is an important part of active listening. Qualifying the person and the topic is vital to leverage active listening and constructive feedback.

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” –Stephen R. Covey. Active listening is a higher state to listening, it involve listening to understand, listening with empathy, listening with true interest, listening with focus and the list goes on. This will reflect on your performance by getting better feedback and make you digest the information better.

Here is how I often look at it: our strengths and weaknesses are not that big of a secret - if anything, they are usually pretty obvious. So when you go into receiving feedback with an impartial mindset, recognizing most comments will be a process of bringing those strengths and weaknesses to the forefront, we create more trust in our teams, and our people are put in a better position to achieve. Once you view receiving feedback like this, it becomes much less restricting to ask for feedback ourselves, and recognize not taking it can be holding you back.

Receiving feedback can be more difficult than providing, depending on the feedback received. Whether the other party is effective and experienced in delivering feedback or not, just remember that a session is only worth what you take from it. Examine each point as a learning opportunity, analysing and extracting: - What is good - What could be better - How you can improve those pain points and learn from past mistakes. The above platform can then be used to take the feedback and develop into a SMART goal(google if unsure). This kind of active listening will provide you the resources to create that smart goal and allow you to improve your weaknesses, whilst practicing your resilience as an employee, regardless of your career level.

To benefit from feedback you must prepare for; Prepare your mindset with a positive attitude and understand that the feedback is an opportunity to grow and develop. Have respect towards other perspectives and point of views and seek their inputs to enrich your performance. Be confident towards criticism and understand it's directed towards your performance growth and development.

Feedback is only valuable if a person will accept the information and apply the corrections through their actions or behavior.

Feedback is received through communication so make sure your enhance your communication not only listening by; ▪ When you speak; Be clear, simple and to the point and try to speak less to listen more and give more space to others to give feedback ▪ Listen actively and be genuinely interested in the feedback provided ▪ Give space to the others to speak and express themselves and acknowledge their feedback through paraphrasing, clarifying and restating. ▪ Prepare the communication channel and mode for optimal communication So You need to eliminate any noise & Breakdown all types of communication Barriers.

I truly value receiving feedback, whether it's positive or constructive, as I see it as a reflection of the speaker's intent to point out my strengths and areas for improvement. In response to feedback, I would acknowledge and identify potential actions or key takeaways. Similarly, when I'm in need of more details, I often initiate the conversation with questions such as "May I clarify..." or "Could you share a specific example of the behavior or action you've observed?" so it helps me to be mindful when similar situations arise.

When I am asked how to repsond to feedback; My advice would say; - be thankful - be respectful - Acknowledge it - Show real interest - Avoid doubt & confusion - Share your upcoming actions

Both the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) and SBI (Situation, Behavior, Impact) approaches have proven to be highly effective for me. These methods provide feedback in an objective manner, emphasizing that the focus is on the specific situation or behavior, rather than making it personal and targeting the individual.