Weekly Mix #225 - How to get faster feedback

Fast Feedback, Places to Travel, Hobbies & Steez

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Happy Monday!

One of the critical factors in how fast you can learn is getting feedback.

What's more, ideal feedback is clear, specific, actionable and timely.

One of the best examples of how powerful this can be is golf instruction using a shot tracker system like Trackman.

A lesson using one of these works like this:

You hit some golf shots

The coach gives you something to work on, describing how it might feel, and what metrics on the tracker you should be watching

You hit more shots, practicing that skill, and after each shot, you get an instantaneous readout of those metrics

You can see an example of the results of a shot showing on a Trackman below:

Image from Trackman​

Learning like this is powerful:

You get clear, specific feedback (concrete metrics)

The advice and feels from your coach are immediately actionable

The feedback on your shot is instant, allowing you to pair the "feeling" and the results

Learning like this in the real world is much more difficult.

Skills you use on a daily basis, like how you interact with your peers, how you communicate, and how you work, are much more blurry than golf shots.

What's more, the situations are rarely the same, and the perception of the situation will vary from person to person.

Getting feedback from peers and managers is also uncomfortable. We're not often in a situation like a golf lesson where we're seeking feedback.

But more of us should find ways to create those situations.

It starts with clarifying what you want to learn. Pick a specific meeting where you want to improve. Make sure your manager is there, or some peers you trust. Ask them to provide you feedback as frequently as possible, both about yourself, but also examples of great (or poor) work by others.

There's always a way to get better feedback.

But we rarely go to the effort to get it.

Have a great week.

Graham

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Links

📖 52 Places for a Changed World - NYT - This text/gallery combo of the New York Times places to travel in 2022 is focused on travel to some lesser-known places throughout the world. Fun to look through just to get your wanderlust going.

📖 How Hobbies Infiltrated American Life - Julie Beck, The Atlantic - This short piece explores the relationship we have (in Western culture in general) with work and hobbies, and our obsession with "productive" hobbies in particular.

"What she found is that in the short term, people regretted the absence of self-control. They were more likely to say they should have worked harder or studied more when thinking about the relatively recent past. When thinking about the distant past, people were more likely to regret having too much self-control, and to say they wish they’d indulged more."

📖 5 Questions Every Manager Needs to Ask Their Direct Reports - Susan Peppercorn, HBR - I've been working on my own growth plan at work lately, so this topic has been on my mind. Too often managers aren't proactive enough in finding out what their reports need. These questions are a good place to start, and I'd suggest giving the person some time to think about the answers before talking about them.

📖 Approaching Outdoor Sports with Steez and Flow - Gloria Liu, Outside - A lovely piece about style, flow, and how they relate to amateur sports and hobbies.

"That’s really what we appreciate when we see a beautiful skier coming down the mountain under the lift line, right? The fluidity and ease that belie years of practice. Even in the Instagram era, you can’t fake style."

🍿 Raul Fernandez crashing in Moto 2 championship - I've gone down the motorcycle protection gear rabbit-hole before, but this just goes to show what it's possible to walk away from with some great protective gear, great training, and a little bit of luck.

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