How to ask for feedback even when you dread it

Our listener Harshit has reached a plateau. He joined an early-stage startup in the EV charging space with a lot of enthusiasm. He believed in the company’s mission. But very soon things started to take a turn for the worse.

When the going got tough, the culture of feedback disappeared. His role kept changing to keep up with the changing business needs. But without feedback, he felt directionless and lost. The leadership was so busy putting out fires that they completely deprioritised feedback. His frustration only grew with time. Was he making progress? Was he adding value? He couldn’t tell. All messages requesting feedback were left on seen.

If he insisted on getting feedback in person, he got something wishy-washy. A telltale sign of not having thought enough about his work.

He did what he thought he never would - quit his job in less than a year of joining. On most days, he knows he made the right decision. But sometimes he wondered if he had to take a share in the blame as well.

Did he not know how to get people’s time and ask for feedback? Was there anything else he could have done to get people interested in his work enough to give him meaningful feedback? Should he have been more relentless in asking? Asked just one more time?

On this episode of The First Two Years, host Akshaya Chandrasekaran is joined by Balaji Ramachandran, director of growth at Meesho, and Karthik Pasupathy, head of marketing at Prudent AI. Both share surprising tips and pragmatic ways to ask for feedback that can help anyone who’s facing obstacles in doing so.

Do you have a career question we can help you to solve? Share a note with the host at [email protected] or take this form and let us know. We might have you on the show! The First Two Years is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive business stories, deeply-reported newsletters, and a whole lot of stuff.