The Hindu Business Line : Getting the right feedback is not easy

Nindak niyare rakhiye aangan kuti chavaye, bin sabun pani bina nirmal kare swabhay. Vivek Mehrotra cites this line of Sant Kabir to stress the need for honest feedback, in Why My Horse Doesn’t Listen ( www.vivagroupindia.com).

“Keep your critiques close to you, let their hut be in your courtyard, that way you don’t need soap and water to cleanse your nature,” reads a helpful translation by http://buntysbanter.blogspot.com, in a February 3-dated posting.

“Periodically check with the people who have given you feedback whether they are finding changes in your communication and relationship with them,” counsels Mehrotra. Getting the right feedback is not an easy task, however. For, “Many a time, the feedback may be misleading.”

With chapters on body language, emotions, style and so on, the book guides you towards effective communication. One of the tips in the ‘listening’ discussion is that you can use the other person’s words while answering or responding. “This reflects your interest in what is being communicated and at the same time helps you to correct your understanding.”

During important conversations, take notes, the author advises. Notes serve a dual purpose, he explains: they reinforce your understanding, and also give you an opportunity to review later. Plus, you give ‘an impression to the speaker that you are giving importance to what he is saying’.

Towards the close of the book, there is a section on ‘handling different types of participants’, where Mehrotra draws insights from Chanakya’s classification of people into five types as follows: Pradiptapragya (the sharp and dashing ones), guptapragya (those with undiscovered talent), suptapragya (the talented but who take no action), truptapragya (the contented), and luptapragya (those who have lost interest).