You just did a very brave thing. Give yourself a pat on the back, high five or thumbs up to celebrate your accomplishment!
The first order of business after your conversation is to identify wins. Take a moment to notice what you did well. What were the wins in this conversation?
• Did you manage to approach the conversation with curiosity, openness, or kindness?
• Did the other person share with empathy and compassion?
• Did you feel seen and/or appreciated?
• What were you most proud of yourself for doing?
• If the conversation was hard, did you learn something that you can take away to improve in your next conversation?
• Did you receive information that can positively impact you or your performance?
Often, some of our greatest lessons come from what initially feel like failures. If the conversation didn't go like you wanted, now is a great time to explore opportunities to improve for yourself and your next conversation.
• What did you learn about yourself?
• Was there a certain piece of feedback that you hadn't heard before?
• Was there something about how you received the feedback that ignited some insight or self-awareness?
• Did you learn something about your feedback partner and how you communicate with that person?
• What did you discover about your emotions and your internal reaction during these conversations?
• What felt good to hear?
• What didn’t feel so good to hear?
Conversations always happen in the context of relationships. Because of this, paying attention to the relationship is an important part of assessing how the conversation went.
• On a scale of 1-5. How would you rate your relationship with your feedback partner after this conversation?
• Is this an increase or decrease compared to how you felt prior to the conversation?
• If your relationship score increased, how can you appreciate or continue to partner with the person?
• If your relationship score decreased, what connection or repair efforts might help?
• For extra credit – how and when can you check in with your feedback partner to see if they have a different perspective?
Now that you've done a quick evaluation, what are the right next steps for you? Make sure they're specific, actionable and time-bound.
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
You don’t have to debrief after every conversation. We’ve got you covered with a quick post-conversation survey online that’s essential. Your completion of that survey is what triggers the release of written feedback. It also ensures that you take a moment after every conversation to do a quick evaluation about how things went and what you want to take away to enhance your performance, your relationship or your next conversation. If you’d like a deeper exploration about how things went, you can complete the deep-dive survey instead. It takes a little longer but may prompt some additional insights and learnings to take away.
You’ve invested in yourself and your feedback partner and you’ll both continue to build on what you’ve accomplished!
