On a casual talk with my friend, he mentioned about how our life repeating some patterns; for example, when we’re going to school, studying, having exams, making mistakes, being graded, given feedback, learned something and tried to be better. We always have learning pattern and of course making mistakes is part of it.
And I was nodding, agreeing his idea.
Recently I received some feedback from my team lead and management during a review session. I’m kind of looking forward to this. I know that sometimes feedback may be bitter, but if it’s the fact then shouldn’t I acknowledge it? Usually what would we do when we received bad feedback? Would you be on denial mode? I think most of us do to certain extent. We would like to justify our position based on the past situation, we might rebut the other person statement, telling them the reason we did that (I know some people even dare to make up some reasons, which I don’t agree in doing so). Some people told me that actually there are no mistakes. We are conditioned by our situations, what we think and what action we took were purely influenced by situations around us that time (do you agree?)
But, how many of us are brave enough to say “yes, I did that mistakes” or “yes, I was doing badly”?
Meanwhile, I’m agree that during feedback session, we should voice out our opinion rather than denying it or making excuses. It’s just that we need to find balance in between denying and acknowledging.
On the other hand, the reviewers’ point of view. If your reviewer is your friend, sometimes it may be harder to say bad things about your friend. This reminds me of my best friend, who told me this many years ago while we’re studying, that if you care enough for that person, you should not give him/her up. You will tell him/her that they did something badly. After all, it’s for their own good.
Taking the blow is not easy it takes years of practice. But it’s also a room for improvement for us. I tend to see that having bad critiques are not bad at all, at least we are all learning about something so that we know in which area we can improve on.
Wrapping up, personally my feeling for this is kind of mix, in between excitement because I can know what I need to improve on and scared as little kids facing their parent over their mistake. However, as this post title, a room for improvement, I have lots of room for improving myself to have bigger heart to acknowledge it and learn from it and move on.
Do you have such experience? How about sharing yours?
