Don't Settle For Lazy Feedback

This episode is a Me-Suite "suitener.” Your host, Donna Peters, takes a question from a listener.

The question is, "I haven't gotten the promotion I thought I’d have by now, and my performance feedback is ‘keep doing what you're doing.’ What should I do with that feedback?"

Well, it's my favorite question. It's also the most painful because the honest answer is that feedback is lazy, and it's extremely unhelpful. So I want to break this down for a moment for the listener who submitted it and anybody else who might be facing this situation.

No one cares about your career more than you do, and so when you get feedback that is as vague, aka lazy, as ‘keep doing what you're doing,’ it's going to require you to do a little bit of extra work. Obviously, do it respectfully, assume positive intention. These were not evil people. But you do need to do some extra work to get specificity around what you need to be doing in this next year—and how will you know—what is the evidence that you have—that you are progressing to the promotion in the next cycle.

So this may require a follow up conversation asking for specificity. It may require that you get some tough feedback that you weren't expecting to hear. It may be that you were getting signals that you might have plateaued. And so therefore, you're getting wonderful information that you might want to be seeking work in another organization. Again, this is all information, and you need it. And then the most positive thing that can happen is that you do get more specificity around that feedback, and you're very energized to continue growing your skills and demonstrating that you are progressing to secure that next promotion, doing everything in your power, in your control, to do so.

The next time you hear feedback, ‘keep doing what you're doing,’ do not accept that as an answer, and get more clarity.