Feedback to action is the difference between high-achievers and those who struggle to accomplish anything; in Today’s Issue we’re going to learn a simple 5-step mental model for how to prepare for feedback when it comes, evaluate in real-time and take action when necessary.
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The mental model I’m going to share with you is loosely based on the wine making process which although is actually a pretty simple product…what makes wine so exciting is the potential to influence the winemaking process, elevating this natural process into an art-form. In wine making the grapes are harvested by hand or machine as a first step; it is then crushed, fermented, pressed and eventually bottled.
You wanto to be passing feedback through the same filter of aging the new information you get to finally arrive at something positive for you and what’s yours to todo.
This Feedback Framework you’ll receive, although quite easy to do is hard to grapple with for 89% of the average youth population - Teenagers are most guilty of over-zealous actions; But when we take time to curb any negative mindset towards feedback the quicker we can respond to recommendations and perform positive change.
No doubt, Feedback is the fastest way to grow as is proven time and time again. Here’s the mental framework to prepare & thoughtfully respond to feedback:
Actively seek feedback
Granted, you want more feedback than less of it. Early on in the engineering history of Netflix they implemented the Chaos monkey which was supposed to test the strength of the streaming platform. Their deliberate action to do this is one clear act of actively seeking feedback for the better. Growth is harder to achieve without feedback. You want to be getting more feedback not less of it. Staying close to a stream of feedback is the ideal place to be where from where you can decipher and act upon.
Feedback is a suggestion no matter how well meaning
Measure ones cut twice when it come to feedback; you have to take each comment and reply you receive with a pinch of salt no matter how well meaning it may seem. Simply put we all have something of value to protect, and that means being better informed too.
Valuable feedback feels like when you’re riding to some beach and need to ask for directions. An individual who asks for directions never gets lost. The feedback is very helpful for the individual in the above example because they had a destination from the get go. It’ll be counter intuitive to use feedback alone as a guiding light, since the most helpful feedback is still an opinion of one the end of the day.
Be excellent
Excellence is showing up everyday and doing the best you can no matter the weather. It’s like a rainy morning in which one salesman looks outside and laments what a shitty weather it is, and the other sets out with ‘what a great day to go out, I bet they’ll be more people home to buy my wares’ The difference is the mindset and approach, one is focused on what’s next considering what’s actually happened and the other sees the obstacle as too high to scale.
Close the feedback loop
One crucial aspect of making wine is the fruit and any wine expert would tell you that for free, but the real idea is bottling and getting it to tables. What that means relating wine making to the feedback process is that, we want to have the option to reply as thoughtfully as possible and be mindful that the other person already wants the best for us. But still reserving our rights & ability to say ‘no’ to opportunities that rank lower in our scale of preference.
“…if the fruit looks and tastes good, you can make beautiful-tasting wine; as a wine maker I hope to be respectful of the fruit” says Sarah a winemaker.
In our approach, we should aim to be open minded to stabilize , mature, fine tune & filter feedback and respond with everyone’s best interest at heart. After which a ‘yes and’ becomes all the more valuable.
Put simpley - being prepared to receive and give feedback is how we can all grow as individuals in our craft, communities and local environments.
Until next time, remember we can all be more mindful✌🏾
- Silas
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