My experience with receiving feedback was when I was working at the Belvedere Elementary School, dealing with young children without prior knowledge as to how I should treat them. The principal gave me detailed feedback on my working ways, pointing out that I had to be more open-minded and kind to the children. The feedback impacted me as it ensured I had better relationships with the kids later on. I think it was impactful as it came from someone who had great experience working with the kids for the better part of her life. Feedback is an avenue for learning and improving, this means that anyone, including me, should be receptive to feedback given by anyone. I always ensure that I receive feedback from anyone, either someone in authority or a customer I am serving, with an open mind.

After receiving numerous complaints about how a colleague handles potential customers and clients, I decided to sit down with him to discuss how we could improve his customer service. I began by explaining the client’s and customer’s feelings towards his approach when serving them, then highlighted how I thought he should talk to and treat them. I don’t think he took the feedback well as he did not change his treatment of the customers, he kept on treating them the way he did at first. My approach to him should have been better since he is one of the best employees, I should have begun by asking what could have been the problem, instead of jumping into the advice part first.

I am very open-minded when receiving feedback from others, I always view the feedback as an opportunity to learn and be better in my professional field. My weakness has to be that I overthink the feedback given, I tend to think I am a big problem in the organization. When giving feedback, I am clear and precise, I will go straight to the specific issue one needs to improve on. My weakness when giving feedback is that I am rarely concerned about the negative or positive effects it will have on you. In most instances, I tend to demotivate people instead of motivating them.