Why We Should All Start Taking Feedback a Little Less Seriously
It’s Probably Not as Clear as You Think
Recently I wrote about giving feedback, and today I’m writing about the other half of the feedback equation — receiving feedback. Just like the tools for giving feedback can help you be a better feedback recipient, these tools for receiving feedback can make you a better feedback giver.
First, though, here’s an experiment I did that surprised me and shows that feedback may be much more fallible than we think.
A Feedback Experiment To Try With Your Team
A member of one of my Learning Circles suggested we try this experiment:
- Have each person anonymously write down an example of “good” and “bad” feedback
- Display each piece of feedback and ask the group to vote on whether that example is from the “good” or “bad” category
I thought it’d be fun to try, so in a pre-session survey I asked everyone to answer these two prompts:
Pretend you’re giving someone growth-oriented feedback, i.e. you want them to improve in a specific area or keep doing something. Write an example of a one or two sentence piece of feedback that you’d consider helpful.
Pretend you’re giving someone growth-oriented feedback, i.e. you want them to improve in a specific area or keep doing something. Write an example of a one or two sentence piece of feedback that you’d consider unhelpful.
When I saw the responses I was skeptical and even wrote a few of my own that I thought would be more ambiguous, but my skepticism was completely unwarranted. I displayed 7 statements, and each time asked “If you received this feedback, would you consider it helpful or unhelpful?” The group didn’t agree on any statement.
Let me say that again. In a near-optimal situation with no interpersonal baggage, I asked people to write a piece of helpful and unhelpful feedback. When I then asked their peers to interpret, the group of four could not agree that a single piece of feedback was uniformly helpful or uniformly unhelpful.
I tried this again with another cohort and this time asked a group of six to provide examples for the same question; four people ended up attending the session. This time I again displayed 7 examples and I changed my question slightly to ask “Is this feedback helpful?” This time, the group disagreed on all but 1 question. So, for 2 separate groups of 4 people, a group was only unanimous 1 out of 14 times, or about 7% of the time. Put another way, 93% of the time at least one person interpreted feedback the opposite way from how it was intended.
Should We All Just Stop Giving Feedback?
After doing the experiment, a response I heard from several people was “I’m never giving feedback again.” I think they were joking, but no, I didn’t do this to scare people away from feedback. It’s useful. It’s how we gain information and grow. Instead, I think the takeaways are:
1) let’s stop taking feedback so seriously, since there’s a very good chance we’re playing a game of telephone and
2) we need to step back, observe what happens when we receive feedback and ask the right questions to make sure we’re getting clear feedback.
Separating the Signal From the Noise
Thanks for the Feedback, a book everyone should read and that I mention so much I’m going to abbreviate to TFTW, talks about separating the “story” of the feedback form the feedback. When we receive feedback, there’s usually at least a small piece of useful information, but it often gets lost in the “noise” accompanying feedback. This noise gets created by both you, the receiver, and by the feedback giver. As a recipient, you don’t just hear a piece of neutral information. Instead, you hear something that gets colored by your thoughts, feelings and past experiences. You can try this out the next time you get feedback — see how quickly it takes for you to start thinking about your interpretation of the feedback, i.e. what the feedback “means.” And just like you, the person giving feedback is viewing both the process of giving feedback and your behavior through their own filters.
It’s kind of amazing that we’re ever successful at feedback.
Challenging Assumptions
We probably can’t stop telling ourselves stories about the feedback we receive. What we can do is become more aware — of our feelings before/while/after getting feedback, of what we think about this feedback and getting feedback generally, and about what types of feedback are triggering because of past experience (again, there’s a great explanation in TFTW). By being aware, we can step back and identify any assumptions we’re making about the feedback. And when we see assumptions, we can challenge them.
Asking Questions
After identifying the assumptions in your feedback story, ask questions so that you can update your story and get closer to a true mutual understanding of the feedback. This is where you can use some of the tools from the feedback formula and also ask about the other person’s intent. Depending on the feedback, you can either use the formula directly, or try modifying to:
- When you said _____
- I heard ______ or the story I told myself is _____
- Is that what you mean?/Is that what you intended?
This may feel awkward at first because it does mean you’re making yourself a little bit vulnerable with someone who just gave you feedback that you probably didn’t like. But it pays off because it lets you test the story you’re telling yourself and update it with more accurate information. And if the person giving you feedback meant it differently from your interpretation, now they’re getting another chance to give feedback the feedback they meant to give.
Note that this doesn’t need to be done immediately after you receive feedback. Feedback often takes time to metabolize, so it’s fine to say you need a break to take in the feedback and that you want to continue the conversation another day. It’s also fine to go back to someone after getting feedback and say you’ve been thinking about their feedback and would like to chat more.
Navigating The Conversation
By identifying assumptions and asking clarifying questions, you’ll already have much more productive feedback conversations. There are a few more techniques TFTW (really, read it) mentions that can make these conversations even easier:
Use Here’s What’s Left Out. If you respond to feedback with “I’m right and you’re wrong,” try switching to “here’s what’s left out.” The person giving you feedback has some information that they are trying to share, and that gets filtered through their own interpretation story. There may be some truth to what they’re saying, so by saying “that’s true and here’s what’s left out,” you allow for both of you to be right. This keeps you from putting the other person on the defensive, and it also gives you a chance to correct any errors the person’s made in making their assumptions.
Process Moves. Since these conversations are hard, TFTF recommends using “process moves” to keep the conversation on track. You can do this by trying to step outside of the conversation to watch and see if it’s gotten stuck. If so, you can say something like “It sounds like there’s another topic here,” or “it seems like we’re not making progress on this, so let’s table it for a little while.”
Identify Needs & Generate Options. Identify each person’s underlying needs and see if you can use that knowledge to generate options that can work for each of you. Since most people aren’t experts at the feedback formula, you’ll probably still get poorly delivered feedback that says something like “I’m mad” or “you never do X” or “you are X.”
It’s hard to get this feedback and yes, it is unfair that you, the recipient, has to do the work of parsing it and trying to understand what the person is really saying. If you can’t do this because you’re angry, it’s fine to ask for a break. If you don’t want to do this work at all, it’s also reasonable to leave that relationship and find a different job.
If you decide that this is a relationship you want to keep, then it’s worth trying to understand the other person’s underlying need. For example, maybe you are being micromanaged. You could assume it’s because you’re not competent and feel sad, or assume it’s because your manager is an a**hole and feel angry. Or, you could ask them why they’re doing whatever it is that makes you feel micromanaged.
I’m not saying this will always work, but you may learn that it has nothing to do with you. For example, maybe they received feedback that they are too hands off. Or maybe your manager is feeling anxious because they want to be kept in the loop on team projects. By understanding your manager’s need, e.g. having knowledge, inclusion, or competence, you can then brainstorm solutions that meet both your needs and the manager’s needs. For example, maybe you tell your manager that you’d feel supported by a regular 1:1 meeting but that you don’t need to check in daily. Or maybe you agree to send a weekly summary so that the manager knows what’s being worked on. Again, the goal is to generate solutions that work for both of you.
Start Practicing
Try this out. Try doing the experiment I described with your team and see if it creates a useful conversation about feedback. Try to start separating the feedback from the story of the feedback, and try the other techniques TFTW mentions. And if you do, let me know as I’d love to hear how it went.
If you’re interested in coaching, you can find me at The Leadership Team.
