Seeking Feedback: Perspective

Episode Transcript

The Seeking Feedback Perspective card states, “There may come a time when feedback from your usual circle begins to feel limiting. When this happens, it may be time to seek perspective from new sources.” And the card invites you to examine what’s called the feedback bubble, which you can do by seeking feedback from someone you respect but who is outside your social circle. Their insights may help you grow in a new way.

Let’s dive into this final card of the Seeking Feedback suit. A feedback bubble is a localized circle of regular feedback providers. If you have people in your life who regularly give you honest input, a manager, coach, mentor, a few trusted colleagues, you have one, and that’s a good thing. These bubbles are natural, often formed within small project teams or hierarchical groups, and they can offer real psychological safety.

But here’s what this card wants you to see. While a bubble may have once positively shaped your life, it can eventually become a barrier. The same trusted voices hearing about the same work through the same lens year after year. Staying within that circle can protect the ego. It can also reinforce existing biases and prevent the kind of catapult growth that only new perspectives provide.

Contrary to popular belief, comfort zones have a ton of benefits. They arise naturally for a host of reasons, including because they are designed to keep you safe at a time when maybe that’s what you need. But at a certain point, they may also be keeping you smaller than you could be, smaller than you want to be. So safe but small. That’s the trade, and I’ve been there, and in some ways in my life still am there. That’s the trade many of us are unknowingly making.

Stepping outside your feedback bubble requires intentionality, and there are many ways to do it. Here are four ways just to get you thinking about what might be your way. First, stretch out. Take on external tasks, public speaking, professional volunteering, that force entirely new feedback scenarios. Second, reach in. Leverage mentorship or shadowing opportunities to gain perspectives from people who see your organization, your team, your behaviors, your practice, and/or you differently. Third, extend it. Welcome new, diverse voices into your established circle to break up stagnant thinking. And then fourth, reflect on. Use the observational feedback we covered earlier in the suit, choosing an area for improvement and studying someone who models that future state. That last one creates a silent kind of feedback loop, letting you learn about and practice new qualities without the immediate pressure of going outside of or otherwise disrupting your bubble.

That’s card 10, the final card of the Seeking Feedback suit. If the feedback in your life has started to feel comfortable, predictable, even a little flat, that may be the signal. Find one person you respect outside your circle and ask for their perspective. Or just put yourself in an entirely new arena where you can work on a new skill, get feedback from a new community. You may find that the view from outside the bubble is exactly what your next stage of growth requires.