Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

“Explicit disagreement is better than implicit misunderstanding.”

“Receiving feedback sits at the intersection of these two needs—our drive to learn and our longing for acceptance.”

“It doesn’t matter how much authority or power a feedback giver has; the receivers are in control of what they do and don’t let in, how they make sense of what they’re hearing, and whether they choose to change. Pushing harder rarely opens the door to genuine learning. The focus should not be on teaching feedback givers to give. The focus—at work and at home—should be on feedback receivers, helping us all to become more skillful learners. The real leverage is creating pull. Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow. It’s also about how to stand up for who we are and how we see the world, and ask for what we need. It’s about how to learn from feedback—yes, even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood.”

“Before you tell me how to do it better, before you lay out your big plans for changing, fixing, and improving me, before you teach me how to pick myself up and dust myself off so that I can be shiny and successful—know this: I’ve heard it before. I’ve been graded, rated, and ranked. Coached, screened, and scored. I’ve been picked first, picked last, and not picked at all. And that was just kindergarten.”

“One important role pattern is called “accidental adversaries.”3 If two people bump into each other enough and cause each other enough frustration, each will begin considering the other an “adversary.” Each attributes the problem to the personality and questionable intentions of the other. But often the true culprit is the structure of the roles they are in, which are (accidentally) creating chronic conflict. If we are each at one end of a rope and our job is to pull, then merely doing our jobs creates a tug-of-war.”

“Grab Bag of Questions for Coach and Coachee Who has given you feedback well? What was helpful about how they did it? Have you ever gotten good advice that you rejected? Why? Have you ever received good advice that you took years later? What motivates you? What disheartens you? What’s your learning style? Visual, auditory, big picture, detail oriented? What helps you hear appreciation? What’s something you wish you were better at? Whose feedback-receiving skills do you admire? What did your childhood and family teach you about feedback and learning? What did your early job experiences teach you? What’s the role of time/stages? What’s the role of mood and outlook? What’s the role of religion or spirituality? What has been the impact of major life events? Getting married? Getting laid off or fired? Having children? Death of a parent? What do you dislike most about coaching? About evaluation? What helps you change?”

“Those who handle feedback more fruitfully have an identity story with a different assumption at its core. These folks see themselves as ever evolving, ever growing. They have what is called a “growth” identity. How they are now is simply how they are now. It’s a pencil sketch of a moment in time, not a portrait in oil and gilded frame. Hard work matters; challenge and even failure are the best ways to learn and improve. Inside a growth identity, feedback is valuable information about where one stands now and what to work on next. It is welcome input rather than upsetting verdict.”

“Appreciation — motivates and encourages. Coaching — helps increase knowledge, skill, capability, growth, or raises feelings in the relationship. Evaluation — tells you where you stand, aligns expectations, and informs decision making.”

“PULL BEATS PUSH Training managers how to give feedback—how to push more effectively—can be helpful. But if the receiver isn’t willing or able to absorb the feedback, then there’s only so far persistence or even skillful delivery can go. It doesn’t matter how much authority or power a feedback giver has; the receivers are in control of what they do and don’t let in, how they make sense of what they’re hearing, and whether they choose to change. Pushing harder rarely opens the door to genuine learning. The focus should not be on teaching feedback givers to give. The focus—at work and at home—should be on feedback receivers, helping us all to become more skillful learners. The real leverage is creating pull. Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow. It’s also about how to stand up for who we are and how we see the world, and ask for what we need. It’s about how to learn from feedback—yes, even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood.”

“Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow. It’s also about how to stand up for who we are and how we see the world, and ask for what we need. It’s about how to learn from feedback—yes, even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood.”

“I’ve been graded, rated, and ranked. Coached, screened, and scored. I’ve been picked first, picked last, and not picked at all. And that was just kindergarten.”

“Learning about ourselves can be painful—sometimes brutally so—and the feedback is often delivered with a forehead-slapping lack of awareness for what makes people tick. It can feel less like a “gift of learning” and more like a colonoscopy.”

“But they are two different topics, and should be two different conversations. Trying to talk about both topics simultaneously is like mixing your apple pie and your lasagna into one pan and throwing it in the oven. No matter how long you bake it, it’s going to come out a mess.”

“Seeing my own contribution to my circumstances makes me stronger, not weaker. If I contribute to my own problems, there are things I have the power to change.”

“But feedback is not simply a thing the giver hands you and you receive. The two of you are building a puzzle—together.”

“WE’RE GOOD AT WRONG SPOTTING If you’ve ever received feedback at work—or had an in-law—you are familiar with the many shapes and sizes of wrong: It’s 2 + 2 = 5 wrong: It is literally incorrect. I could not have been rude at that meeting because I was not at that meeting. And my name is not Mike. It’s different-planet wrong: Somewhere in the universe there may exist a carbon-based life form that would have taken offense at my e-mail, but here on Earth everyone knows it was a joke. It used to be right: Your critique of my marketing plan is based on how marketing worked when you were coming up. Before the Internet. And electricity. It’s right according to the wrong people: Some see me that way, but next time, talk to at least one person who is not on my Personal Enemies List. Your context is wrong: I do yell at my assistant. And he yells at me. That’s how our relationship works—key word being “works.” It’s right for you, but wrong for me: We have different body types. Armani suits flatter you. Hoodies flatter me. The feedback is right, but not right now: It’s true that I could lose a few pounds—which I will do as soon as the quintuplets are out of the house. Anyway, it’s unhelpful: Telling me to be a better mentor isn’t helping me to be a better mentor. What kind of mentor are you anyway? Why is wrong spotting so easy? Because there’s almost always something wrong—something the feedback giver is overlooking, shortchanging, or misunderstanding. About you, about the situation, about the constraints you’re under. And givers compound the problem by delivering feedback that is vague, making it easy for us to overlook, shortchange, and misunderstand what they are saying. But in the end, wrong spotting not only defeats wrong feedback, it defeats learning.”

“Emotional math is really a subset of a larger dynamic. When something goes wrong and I am part of it, I will tend to attribute my actions to the situation; you will tend to attribute my actions to my character.”

“This is a common pattern. My story about my interactions with others is driven by my intentions. I have good intentions—I’m trying to help, to guide, even to coach. I assume my good intentions lead to good impacts—they feel helped, guided, and appreciate my efforts to help them grow. Hence, people must know I’m a good person. But for those around us, our impact drives their story. Despite my best intentions, I may have a negative impact on you; you feel bossed around and micromanaged. You then assume that I’m acting purposefully, or at least that I know I’m being bossy and don’t care enough not to be. And if I have negative or negligent intentions I must be a bad person. Now you give me feedback that I’m bossy and controlling, and I’m shocked and bewildered. I discard it because it doesn’t match who I am. It’s wrong. And you conclude that I’m either oblivious to who I am or so defensive that I refuse to acknowledge what everyone knows is true.”

“When it comes to feedback, there are two kinds of mirrors—Supportive Mirrors and Honest Mirrors. A supportive mirror shows us our best self, well rested and under flattering light. We go to a supportive mirror for reassurance. Yes, how we acted in that moment was not a pretty picture, but it’s not how we really look. It’s not a big deal. It’s a bad picture of you. Throw it away. You’re a good person. An honest mirror shows us what we look like right now, when we’re not at our best and our bedhead is bad. It’s a true reflection of what others saw today, when we were stressed and distracted and leaking our frustration. “Yes, you really did come across that way. It’s not a good thing.”

“Intersections—differences in preferences, tendencies, and traits that cause us to bump into each other—account for a significant proportion of the friction and feedback in both personal and professional relationships. Marriage researcher John Gottman reports that 69 percent of the fights married couples currently have are about the same subjects they were arguing about five years ago.1 And chances are, they’ll be selecting from that same menu of arguments five years from now.”

“That’s Systems Insight Number Two: Each of us sees only part of the problem (the part the other person is contributing). Systems Insight Number One is this: Each of us is part of the problem. Maybe not to the same extent, but we’re both involved, each affecting the other.”

“While we all need to feel accepted as we are, we also need to hear feedback—particularly when our behavior is affecting others. Being accepted isn’t an escape hatch from responsibility for consequences, as we discuss in more detail in chapter 10. So, seek acceptance. And work to make amends with the kids and with the funders (and with the car).”

“Roles are defined by their relationship to other roles. You’re not an older sibling until you have a younger sibling; you aren’t a mentor until you’ve got someone to “ment.” Although there are personality-driven aspects to roles—I’m the funny one, you’re the responsible one—roles have an effect on behavior that is independent of character. A role is like an ice cube tray into which you pour your personality. What you pour in matters, but so does the shape of the tray.”

“Feedback givers also confuse impacts and intentions. Their feedback is packed with assumed intentions. Instead of saying, “You try to steal credit for other people’s ideas” (which includes a description of intentions), they should share the impact the behavior had on them: “I was upset and confused when you said it was your idea. I felt I deserved the credit for that idea.” But few feedback givers are this skilled or careful (because they’re obviously terrible people).”

“All of these amplifiers—our tendency to subtract certain emotions from our self-description, to see missteps as situational rather than personality-driven, and to focus on our good intentions rather than our impact on others—add up. And so we get statistics like this: 37 percent of Americans report being victims of workplace bullies, but fewer than 1 percent report being bullies. It’s true that one bully can have many victims, but it’s unlikely that each averages thirty-seven.11 What’s more likely is that at least some percentage of those feeling bullied are receiving ill treatment from people who are unaware of their impact. They judge themselves by their intentions (“I was just trying to get the job done right!”) and attribute others’ reactions to their hypersensitivity (character) or the context (“Look, it was a tense situation. Anyone would have reacted that way”). Telling this latter group not to bully others is no solution, because they don’t realize that they’re doing so.”

“strong emotions can seem as if they are part of the environment rather than part of us. It’s not that I was angry, we think, it’s that the situation was tense. But situations are not”

“You don’t trust them. You don’t like them. They say all the wrong things at all the wrong times. Why in the world would you listen to feedback from them? Because they have a unique perspective on you. We tend to like people who like us and who are like us.3 So if you live mostly without friction with your mate or work well with a colleague, chances are you have similar styles, assumptions, and habits. Your preferences and expectations may not be identical, but the two of you fall into an easy complementariness. Because of this ease, you are often at your best and most productive with them. They can’t help you with your sharpest edges because they don’t see those edges. The woman in Procurement does. She thinks you’re arrogant, flip, irresponsible. Unpleasant, curt, avoidant. You know the problem is her—she brings out your worst. But it is your worst. It’s you under pressure, you in conflict.”

“Want to fast-track your growth? Go directly to the people you have the hardest time with. Ask them what you’re doing that’s exacerbating the situation. They will surely tell you.”

“The difference here is not just a matter of cutting ourselves a break. It’s really an alternate way of telling the story. In extreme cases this helps explain why a person who is convicted of business fraud, who bankrupted scores of investors, for instance, can think of himself as an upstanding member of society: “I’ve always been community-minded and generous. I never meant to hurt anyone. But I got caught up in something that spun out of control.” It was the situation, not me.”

“The question of who is offering us feedback doesn’t seem like it should matter. Regardless of the source, the advice is either wise or foolish, the ideas worthwhile or worthless. But it does matter. We are often more triggered by the person giving us feedback than by the feedback itself. In fact, relationship triggers may be the most common derailers of feedback conversations.”