Here’s how I successfully asked for feedback from a colleague at work recently.
- I did some personal reflection and wrote a self-evaluation. I reflected on the main areas where I observed problems, friction, or opportunities to improve as a coworker.
- I emailed my colleague saying: It’s been a while since I asked for feedback from the team, I’m always trying to improve, and would appreciate any thoughts you have in this area for me. I attached my self-evaluation at the bottom. I asked if they would be open to a 25-minute meeting to chat about this. They could either prepare thoughts beforehand, or we could just chat about the self-evaluation and explore in real time.
- They agreed, and we did the call. I shared my screen with a copy of the self-evaluation, so we had something to look at, and so I could annotate with notes in realtime.
In the past, I sent such an email without the self-evaluation attached, or worse, with a long list of specific feedback questions I wanted answered.
The self-evaluation + call strategy works well because it reduces the amount of creative energy the feedback giver needs to spend.
Rather than reflecting from scratch on your performance (which they may not even have close to mind), they have a set of initial prompts which might spur ideas.
Doing your own self-evaluation also shows that you’re self-aware of your own weaknesses.
Making some “critical” comments about yourself can make it easier for a colleague to give feedback that they might be shy about. They might not want to sound negative, and might be reluctant to bring something up, but if you were able to anticipate it and “pre-critique” yourself, that makes it easier for them to agree and possibly elaborate on the topic.