Using Feedback: Adjust

Episode Transcript

The Using Feedback Adjust card states, “First attempts are rarely perfect. In our attempts to change, it’s easy to over-correct or under-correct. Seek input on how you implemented the feedback.” And the card invites you to practice the dartboard, which you can do by trying the new behavior, then asking, “I tried to adjust X today. Was that closer to what we discussed? Do you have any further guidance?”

Let’s make this concrete with a scenario. So imagine you’ve determined you want to improve how you structure your team meetings. You’ve run them informally for years. People jump in when they have something to say. Topics flow into each other, and honestly, mostly it has felt like it worked. But you’ve received feedback, maybe from a few directions, that the informality’s causing real challenges. The same voices dominate. Quieter team members rarely get it. And the meetings often end without clear progress on what actually needs to be decided. You process the feedback, you decide it’s valid, you commit to change.

Now watch the two ways the first attempt commonly goes sideways.

The overcorrection. You swing hard. Next meeting, there’s a rigid agenda with timed segments, a formal speaking order. Maybe you’re literally going around the table requiring everyone to contribute two minutes whether they have something to say or not. Hands must be raised. And the meeting that was too loose is now so stiff that the natural collaboration, the actual good part of what you had going, is gone. The team leaves the room feeling sort of robotized rather than heard, and maybe the awkwardness of all that convinces you that the feedback was wrong, so you discard.

The under-correction, the opposite move. You add a loose agenda to the calendar invite, mention, “Let’s make sure everyone gets a chance to weigh in at the start,” and then the meeting goes exactly as before. Same voices dominate, same patterns play out. You’ve technically responded to the feedback, like in a check-the-box kind of way, so it feels handled, but the people who raised the concern see nothing meaningfully different. And now they may also think that giving you feedback doesn’t lead anywhere.

Both misses are normal, genuinely. First attempts at behavioral change are throws at a dartboard, and almost nobody hits the center on throw one. What separates people who actually improve is what happens after the throw. That’s the dartboard practice. You go back to the source. “I tried restructuring our meeting this week, added the agenda, actively invited a few folks in. Was that closer to what we discussed? Any further guidance?” That kind of follow-up does two things at once. It calibrates your next throw with real information instead of guesswork, and it shows the feedback giver their input mattered enough for you to check in, to check your aim, which, as we cover elsewhere in this deck, strengthens the entire feedback relationship.

That’s card 05 of the Using Feedback suit. After your next first attempt, try to resist grading it yourself in isolation. Ask the person who gave you the feedback whether the dart landed closer. This is all about adjustment. It’s those micro-adjustments where growth happens.