“Because of its value, some people have called feedback ‘the breakfast of champions’. But it isn’t the breakfast; it’s the lunch. Vision is the breakfast. Self-correction is the dinner. Without the vision we have no context for feedback; we’re just responding to what someone else values or wants. (-) With a clear sense of vision and mission, we can use feedback to help us achieve a greater integrity.” Stephen Covey.
I have been a Public Speaker since 2006. I have mentored other speakers. I have won and judged local speech and evaluation competitions, I have won and lost competitions at local and national level. I have spoken at large and small gatherings, and I have taught Leadership to 104 13-year-olds in one go.
However, I was recently humbled by some ‘feedback’.
Having just completed the requirements of one particular speaking Award I was on a roll, so I decided that the next thing to do was to start working on the next qualification. I tried an ‘Impromptu Speech’, where I was given three alternative subjects to choose from, then ten minutes to prepare a 5-minute speech on the subject I selected. Easy peasy, done it before.
But I bombed. The feedback was not quite the glowing reference I expected.
My evaluator ripped me a new one. To say my flabber was ghasted, and my crest fell, would be an understatement. I listened to the critique, thinking, “I thought you were my friend!” as he tore apart my structure (there was one, I swear) and nearly everything else I’d done. To be clear, advice was given, to which I listened with a steely, blameworthy gaze that I pretended was my poker-face. I was, to say the least, abashed.
For about three minutes.
My abashment only lasted that long because – he was right.
After the meeting I went to my evaluator and told it like it was – that it was refreshing, for once, to hear a blunt, frank, critical evaluation that wasn’t tinged with an unwillingness to say what needed to be said.
That was the point of the evaluation. And it was also a sobering yet appropriate reminder that for all our experience and wonderfully ego-feeding successes, we all still have things to learn.
I still hate feedback. The same guy gave me feedback again, last night. And again, he provided some considered criticism. But (again) the dismay only lasted until I got over the emotion of being nagged because he was right, again, and I can take the information provided and use it to get better.
So I am better off. I learned something about speaking and about myself, as do we all when we listen to criticism without the filter of self-defence.
What has this got to do with time management? When we get better because we listen to feedback, we save the time needed to correct mistakes. We develop improved systems for dealing with inputs. We reduce the need for the same criticisms to be made and defended a second, third or fourth time. We get better so we get faster, and we get more productive without the stress. And we use less time to achieve the same desired outcomes.
As a result of the feedback, I now know that that every cloud has a silver lining. Which was, ironically, the subject I had to choose from the three. If only I’d had this story to put in the speech…………
For more on time management and stress-free productivity, read Police Time Management.
Police Time Management 