Hi there,
It’s been hard to not talk about the sunshine this week - balmy, bright and utterly brilliant. It’s quite a British mannerism of me to start with the weather, although it is on brand with The Sun’s Out.
A relatively uneventful week goes by, with revision, cricket, a few webinars and two visits back to school to support the ‘Giving Day’. Friday’s ‘Vesey’s Got Talent’ makes it to my highlight of the week, a brilliant spectacle of music and dance which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The Cyber Leaders Challenge I took part in last month was a fantastic experience. I particularly enjoyed being in a small team and taking part in a challenge, working together with the same people across subsequent tasks.
However, being a newly formed team brought with it a challenge: working together, with our different styles, approaches and ideas. My 3 teammates went to the same school but I hadn’t met one of our teammates till the day of the First Round!
In the end, we did quite well, getting into the top 10. However, we were, by our own standards, quite poor in the semi-final, lacking a communication-strong structure in our briefing and missing the mark with what we were pitching. Disappointed by the outcome yet pleased by our progress, we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon.
On the tube home, I ask one of my teammates: “based on what you’ve seen of me and worked with me over the past 2 months, what did you like about working with me and what did you not like about working with me?” The response was fascinating.
2 things. One, you use AI too much and too quickly. Two, your notes then become quite unstructured/hard to read and hence unusable.
Overuse of AI.
I’d like to think I’m someone who tries to implement new tools at my disposal as much as I can, which powers my approach to using AI - I haven’t used it as much as I could, to speed up processes, to gain new perspectives or to research effectively. I tried methodically improving one of my posts - here, if you’re keen - and it (ChatGPT) was extremely helpful e.g. at pointing out parts where I was assuming readers knew about a certain aspect of my life.
This is what led to me tending to use AI for our project. With a lot of information to process with the briefing materials, the value drawing real-life parallels would bring to our presentation and the benefit of another perspective on the scenario, I thought AI would be great to use here. However, perhaps I used it as too much of a crutch or ran to it too quickly when I had something I was unsure about.
Lack of structure
We had just 16 hours (1800 to 1000) to prepare for the semi-final, quickly absorbing the new material and coming up with a structure for our briefing. Another element of challenge was our different sleep requirements - I knew I wouldn’t be able to operate on less than 6 hours whereas my teammates were more able at staying up through the night.
This brought a solid surprise on the morning of the Quarter Final, where my section had been completely revamped. Similarly, I went to bed feeling that I’d suggested a solid skeleton for our briefing, that my teammates understood it and I woke up to a new structure.
Fast forward a couple of hours and amongst other things, our briefing came across as a bit all over the place, with one of the judges saying we lost him 😬. As I wrote about reflecting on the competition 2 weeks ago (link below!), structure is incredibly important in a presentation, for clarity/comprehension, impact and memorability.
It would be unwise and miss the point to say who was to blame in this situation, whichever way you think it is. The more crucial point is that my lack of clarity meant, with short prep time and a tired mind, my teammates couldn’t use my work, had to scrap it and start again.
This gets us to the point of this post - asking for and giving feedback. I’ve been keen on this for a long time, because I’m a firm believer in constant improvement. Self-awareness and reflection can certainly show you what needs doing; however, the opinion of those around you or working with you is also invaluable.
How does this apply here? In between the qualifiers and the quarter finals, I should have paused to ask my teammates whether there was anything more/less/different they wanted from my contribution to the team, which would lead to stronger results for the team. It might have meant we got through to the finals.
A few more thoughts about feedback:
Take generously, with a filter - I believe in quantity over quality here. Lots of data points are always useful. However, you must consider the quality of each data point. It reminds me of how someone I look up to recently defined how to achieve success - “by copying the actions of those who are where I want to be”.
Is the feedback from a competent/qualified source?
Do they have your best interests at heart?
Did they know the full story before giving you a point of feedback?
Reflect well and act on the feedback - the flipside to quantity over quality. If you get some feedback, you must use it, for two reasons. One, that’s why you asked for it (duh) and two, perhaps underrated - if you can go back to the person and say, “look, you gave me this to work on, I have”, you’ve struck gold 🙌:
They feel special, that you thought their opinion was worth your attention and energy.
They feel impressed, that you are someone who is actually keen on taking feedback and improving as a result.
Overall, you’re now more likely to gain their respect and get further feedback from them, a feedback loop.
Be clear on how your teammate wants to hear feedback - this reminds me of my time as school captain1. There’s no point delivering feedback to a team member, if they’re not open to listening to it. Worse, it might ruin your working relationship with them, a net negative outcome. It’s a little direct, but next time, I might try “how do you like to both give and take feedback? Often or at certain points? Direct or constructive (perhaps those last two aren’t mutually exclusive?)
Feedback is elusive - it’s the plant food that can nourish our journey in a growing venture. If there aren’t systems to encourage it, create them yourself. And if there are, make sure you’re using them to their best - they could just lead to a free iPad2.
Podcast of the week🎙️
I didn’t get to listen to much this week (minus a lot of Trump-influenced market reaction updates!) - but this was an insightful listen, particularly for those who have an interest in finance or investing.
What I’m grateful for this week 🙏
The weather gods for such gorgeous weather (honestly, has made this week more enjoyable than it could have been). ☀️
Quote of the week 💬
Don't worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try. Jack Canfield
Looking forward to my one and only spring week this week - maybe I’ll inch closer towards knowing what I want to do with my shiny maths degree. Look out for more cool photos of London 📸
Adi
Looking forward to my school’s awards night on Thursday!
Part of the prize for 1st place in the cyber competition😂