I love Jack and Suzy Welch’s column that appears in Business Week and on their own web site. In it, they answer questions from readers about career and personal advice.

One issue they’ve identified many times is that hardly anyone seems to get a candid and helpful performance review. In fact, when they ask the question “Have you gotten an honest and helpful appraisal in the last year?” to audiences around the world, less than ten percent of the people raise their hands.

That’s awful. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. You need it to get better.

And you need feedback that’s both candid and helpful. So, if you’re not getting that at work, what should you do? Here are some ideas.

Talk to your boss. Tell him or her what you want. Explain why. They’re not likely to suddenly start giving you feedback if you don’t ask.

Talk to your peers. One of the best sources of advice and feedback at work is your peers. They know you and they know the work. Perhaps you can create a “Mutual Feedback Society” pledged to provide candid advice without meanness.

Talk to your mentor(s). If you don’t have a mentor, it’s time to find at least one. We’re developing Momentor to make that easier for you.

You can give yourself feedback, too. Develop a simple system of critiquing your own performance and behavior.

Be clear about what you intend to do. Be honest about what you did and how things turned out.

Beware of our common human tendency to rate ourselves according to intent, not results. Rate yourself as if you’re someone else.

Then, do something about what you learn. Figure out what you need to improve. Develop a plan to improve it.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions and it’s up to you to make sure that you’re getting the feedback you need to succeed.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.