Let’s talk about feedback. 

I was afraid of feedback for the longest time. I feared if I asked people for their thoughts, they would just jump at the chance to tell me that I was awful at my job! I also felt feedback was the quickest way for me to want to close my business: if I got horrible feedback, I might as well just shut the doors and go and do something else, right?!

WRONG. Talk about Imposter Syndrome!

In reality, what I have learned is that feedback is absolutely invaluable in improving and growing my business to create the best experience for my customers and my team. And that’s ultimately what we want to achieve as business owners—we want our businesses to be successful and sought after by both the people we serve and the employees we hire.

The benefits of giving and receiving feedback: 

• Helps clarify expectations. 

• Helps people learn from their mistakes.

• Builds confidence. 

• Provides an opportunity to rally a team behind your vision and your mission. 

• Lets you help develop your employees

• Lets your employees and customers feel heard.

So, how do we go about asking for feedback? 

This is something you can do in both formal ways, such as performance reviews and surveys, as well as informal ways, such as regular communication, team meetings, social media and so on. 

A few rules of thumb when it comes to feedback with employees: 

• If formal performance reviews haven’t been a part of your process with employees before, don’t suddenly spring regular review meetings on them. You need to create a workplace culture where feedback is common and encouraged. 

• You can start small; informal chats with team members as you make your coffee, a message inviting thoughts in your group text message or Slack, an invite to a casual lunch where you let them know a topic you’d like to discuss together. 

• When you’re ready to introduce regular performance reviews, give fair warning, let everyone know your intentions and set clear expectations of what will be involved.

When it comes to feedback from your customers: 

• It’s not enough to just hope people will come to you if they are upset about something. You want to be continually seeking feedback from your customers and providing them with opportunities to do so. 

• Try an informal approach like “Feedback Fridays” where you put a post on social media and say “Tell us how you’re feeling!” The encouraging feedback will be a little motivation boost for your team, and the constructive feedback will give you areas for improvement. 

• If you notice you’re receiving similar feedback over and over, this is an indication you need to address this concern, perhaps answering it via your Frequently Asked Questions on your website, in customer handbooks, or your regular newsletter, for example. 

I encourage you, if you haven’t talked about formal and informal ways of getting feedback from both your employees and your customers as part of your business, pop this task on your To Do List for next week.

Being comfortable both giving and receiving feedback and making that a formalised part of my business has truly been one of my greatest lessons in leadership to date. 

I hope that you can implement something that will work for you as well.