Only Practice Is Not Enough!
Tanmay Vora
“Practice makes a man perfect”, they say.
Only practice is not enough. In business, have you seen people who have been doing something for a long time and still not very good at it? If practice was enough, these people should have been rock stars in their work, right? But they aren’t.
So, what’s missing? I think, feedback.
Imagine that one of your team members is working on an important assignment for a long time, and there is no feedback. People treat no news as good news and end up assuming that what they are doing is correct. This can be dangerous.
Then there are people who constantly want to know if they are doing the right thing, and regular feedbacks not only help them improve, but also keep them aligned and motivated. People don’t want to wait for one year to know their “areas of improvement”.
As individuals, when we practice our art, we need to constantly look for feedbacks. We are our first source of feedback, since we invariably “feel” about how we have performed. Our gut is the strongest feedback system we are equipped with. Look for your internal feedback, and you mostly get the answer.
Practice only makes us perfect (and helps us improve), when there is a frequent supply of high quality feedback so that we can quickly do necessary course corrections, adjust our game, deliver better and hence learn.
Bottom line:
– If you want to build a constantly learning organization, build a culture where feedback is shared early and often.
– To find greatest level of success in an organization, professionals need to remain open to accept feedback, analyze it positively and use it for their further actions.
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Check out: July Leadership Development Carnival hosted by Dan McCarthy – an excellent collection of high quality content on leadership and executive development. Carnival also features my post “Leading People? A Few Core Lessons”.
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Feedback and Actions against that feedback for improvement are the two major parts which helps any individuals to grow.
I had really nice and excellent experience working with you as you always shared feedback on regular interval and also provide multiple solutions for improvements.
It is also up to individuals to act on that feedback to achieve their goal. Thanks for your constant support which is helping me to grow.
@Maulik – Thanks for those super kind words here. We as individuals have a responsibility to act on the feedback received, which is very important. It is crucial to remain open to receive feedback and use it constructively to improve.
Absolutely agreed!
Doing something over and over again does not guarantee that you will get good at it. Constant feedback is essential to correct those mistakes that one might be making. Practicing without feedback means that you could be practicing mistakes and that will just put you back on your goals. You will have to ‘unlearn’ your mistake before starting over again. The best way to avoid this is feedback.
I also think that, apart from feedback, one needs to have to ability of assessing themselves without prejudice.
– Sindoora (http://www.beyondhorizons.in)
Sindoora, self-feedback (or what we can intra-personal intelligence) is all about listening to your intuition, which is a strongest compass we have to seek direction in our lives.