Soliciting the right feedback

- Ask and you shall receive. That's how getting feedback works, right? Actually, it's only partially true. Stanford University researchers found that when women ask for feedback, they receive it but they're more likely to receive vague feedback than men. So, a man might be more likely to hear feedback like, "You need to deepen your domain knowledge in IT "to gain a broader grasp of the business." But a woman might be more likely to hear, "Your communication style needs some work." Notice how one includes a solution and the other doesn't? This vague feedback can undercut women come promotion time and it can hurt women's chances of being seen as leaders. Why? People tend to describe and give feedback to women in a way that's less tied to business outcomes, but here's the good news. You can offset this tendency towards vague input. The thing is, you have to know how to seek it out. Right now is the time to go after the hard…