An easy way to stop learning

Did you know that there is no learning without feedback? I heard Prof. Marian Diamond speak on this topic many years ago.  She’s an expert in the brain and is still working at 85.

She is one of the world’s leading neuroscientists. I was lucky enough to meet her. Till I heard her talking about feedback, I had no idea how important it was. I thought it was dry and boring. Just something you had to do in a performance review or appraisal and perhaps once or twice a year.

Now I know better. The important thing to realise is that by not giving or getting enough feedback, you are not learning as much as you could be. You are making your life more difficult than it has to be. You are not moving forward and improving.

No learning

Have you seen people (or companies) who make the same mistake again and again? We all have.

One of the key reasons for this is just not checking information you already have about the results of your actions. You often don’t need to get feedback from others; you can get the information yourself. And that’s all feedback is: information.

It’s information that helps you to make a decision on what to do next time.

A small example of feedback working

I worked with Anne, a finance manager. She had a team member who was unreliable. He often did not complete tasks when they were required. Many of her requests were sent by email.

We printed them all out and she put them into two piles. The ones he had complete on time and the ones that had not been completed on time.

There was a clear different in the way she had asked him to complete the task. When she had given a specific time or date, the tasks were done promptly. Where she had said they were ‘urgent’ or ‘really important’ (with not date) they had not been completed on time.

So her feedback was clear – to get tasks completed on time, Anne needed to give a specific date.


Find out how to get feedback and make sure others get it.