Feedback Thoughts

Feedback Thoughts

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(Mimi and Eunice "angry person" comic by Nina Paley)

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The article that was most interesting/helpful to me personally was the article on praise that promotes narcissism vs healthy self-esteem. Because of my job as a retail store manager and the career I want to pursue, giving out proper praise is something I am constantly working on. Granted this article used children as the main receivers of praise, but I feel as though there were some pointers I could implement in my life now.

I want to try working on rephrasing my praise in a healthier way. I think as I am working and running around my praise ends up being generic and could potentially promote narcissism. Instead of saying a simple good job with no specifics, I could say "I really loved how you built a relationship with that customer."

As I said before, my job and career pursuits require me to not only give praise/feedback but also take it. While I mostly get my experience with feedback from my job, as I start to explore the factions of psychology (what I am going to grad school for, most likely), I am realizing that feedback will only grow to be an even bigger part of my life.

My favorite strategy to use when giving feedback is usually to ask questions. Whenever I have come out of a bad experience with feedback, the one complaint I usually have is that I felt like I was being talked at or down to. By asking questions, the person giving the feedback keeps the atmosphere of a conversation which leads to a proper pinpoint for improving rather than scolding and leaving the worker to feel bad.

I react differently to negative feedback depending on the what environment I am in and who is giving me the feedback. In any sort of business or school setting, any negative feedback I get I deal with very rationally. Most of the time if it is warranted then I already expect it but if I feel as though they are wrong I will present my side of the argument. But if it is my dad who is giving me negative feedback on my personal life I feel really dejected or incompetent, not because of the way my dad presents but because it means I am disappointing him in some way.

I have learned a lot from my roommate's style of giving feedback. My roommate is an early childhood education major so proper feedback is her realm of expertise in a way. Since she is a senior now, she has settled into utilizing all the tips she has learned throughout college with no pausing or rephrasing. It just shows me that you can get better at giving feedback and that it does not happen in a instance.