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June 7 - June 13, 2019
home—should be on feedback receivers, helping us all to become more skillful
game. 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.
we long for something else that is fundamental: to be loved, accepted, and respected just as we are.
Receiving feedback sits at the intersection of these two needs—our drive to learn and our longing for acceptance.
Receiving feedback well doesn’t mean you always have to take the feedback. Receiving it well means engaging in the conversation skillfully and making thoughtful choices about whether and how to use the information and what you’re learning. It’s about managing your emotional triggers so that you can take in what the other person is telling you, and being open to seeing yourself in new ways. And sometimes, as we discuss in chapter 10, it’s about setting boundaries and saying no.
Feedback-seeking behavior—as it’s called in the research literature—has been linked to higher job satisfaction, greater creativity on the job, faster adaptation in a new organization or role, and lower turnover.
And seeking out negative feedback is associated with higher performance ratings.7
And of course, as you move up, candid coaching becomes increasingly scarce, so you have to work harder to get it.
Truth Triggers are set off by the substance of the feedback itself—it’s somehow off, unhelpful, or simply untrue. In response, we feel
Relationship Triggers are tripped by the particular person who is giving us this gift of feedback. All feedback is colored by the relationship between giver and receiver, and we can have reactions based on what we believe about the giver (they’ve got no credibility on this topic!) or how we feel treated by the giver (after all I’ve done for you, I get this kind of petty criticism?). Our focus shifts from the feedback itself to the audacity of the person delivering it (are they malicious or just stupid?).
Identity triggers are all about us. Whether the feedback is right or wrong, wise or witless, something about it has caused our identity—our sense of who we are—to come undone.
Our triggers are obstacles because they keep us from engaging skillfully in the conversation.
And of shelving or discarding the parts of the feedback that in the end seem off or not what you need right now.
During an effective conversation, the feedback giver may come to see why their advice is unhelpful or their assessment unfair, and both parties may understand their relationship in a clarifying light.
Part of the problem is that the word “feedback” can mean a number of different things. A pat on the back is feedback, and so is a dressing-down.
The very first task in assessing feedback is figuring out what kind of feedback we are dealing with. Broadly, feedback comes in three forms: appreciation (thanks), coaching (here’s a better way to do it), and evaluation (here’s where you stand).
Know what you want, and know what you’re getting. The match matters.
nonetheless? No. We’re saying that Kip doesn’t yet know what the feedback actually means.
Complicating our desire to understand feedback is the matter of blind spots.
Our perception of feedback is inevitably influenced (and sometimes tainted) by who is giving it to us.
If Sam is genuinely troubled that Miriam is not treating his family as warmly as he’d like, that’s an important conversation to have—as is the conversation about Miriam’s feeling underappreciated. But they are two different topics, and should be two different conversations.
Identity is the story we tell ourselves about who we are and what the future holds for us, and when critical feedback is incoming, that story is under attack.
life. Understanding the common wiring patterns as well as your own temperament gives you insight into why you react as you do, and helps explain why others don’t react the way you expect them to.
Luckily for Laila (and the rest of us), it is possible to learn to keep feedback in perspective, even when doing so doesn’t come naturally.
2 distinguishes among three types of feedback and helps you see why it matters which kind of feedback you want and which kind of feedback you are getting. It always comes down to purpose.
Why is it that when we give feedback we so often feel right, yet when we receive feedback it so often feels wrong?
Dad is, in fact, treating the girls the same. He’s offering the same advice in the same tone of voice. If we were watching the action from the bleachers, we’d see no difference.
Our responses don’t always hinge on the skill of the giver or even on what is being said. Rather, they’re based on how we are hearing
appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. Each serves an important purpose, each satisfies different needs, and each comes with its own set of challenges.1
we never outgrow the need to hear someone say, “Wow, look at you!”
When people complain that they don’t get enough feedback at work, they often mean that they wonder whether anyone notices or cares how hard they’re working.
Coaching is aimed at trying to help someone learn, grow, or change. The focus is on helping the person improve, whether it involves a skill, an idea, knowledge, a particular practice, or that person’s appearance or personality.
your knowledge or skills in order to build capability and meet novel challenges. In your new role you’re working to learn about the markets, products, channels, culture—and location—of the Pacific Rim.
the second kind of coaching feedback, the feedback giver is not responding to your need to develop certain skills.
When your boss says your performance is “extremely strong” and that he’s grooming you for his job, that’s evaluation (in this case, positive).
Evaluation tells you where you stand. It’s an assessment, ranking, or rating. Your middle school report card, your time in the 5k, the blue ribbon awarded your cherry pie, the acceptance of your marriage proposal—these are all evaluations.
Evaluations are always in some respect comparisons, implicitly or explicitly, against others or against a particular set of standards.
Evaluations align expectations, clarify consequences, and inform decision making. Your rating has implications for your bonus, your time in the backstroke means you did or didn’t qualify.
once again, you’ve fallen short of your potential. The judgment that you are naïve or falling short is not based on the assessment—the outcome of the race.
And it is the bullwhip of negative judgment—from ourselves or others—that produces much of our anxiety around feedback.
Harsh commentary, malicious attacks, and anonymous venting in these forums are common, catering to reader cheers or jeers.
Each form of feedback—appreciation, coaching, and evaluation—satisfies a different set of human needs. We need evaluation to know where we stand, to set expectations, to feel reassured or secure. We
Before I can take in coaching or appreciation, I need to know that I’m where I need to be, that this relationship is going to last.
When workers answer “No” to these questions, it’s not necessarily because supervisors don’t care or aren’t saying “Thanks.”
Three qualities are required for appreciation to count. First, it has to be specific.
improvement”—often consists of a list of 118 detailed items. We focus on the negative because we are focused on an immediate problem: Yes, you did a good job overall, but our task at this moment is to address the latest supply chain snafu or the product placement.
Second, appreciation has to come in a form the receiver values and hears clearly.
The 5 Love Languages. Some of us take in love through words (“I love you”), while others hear it more clearly through acts of service, quality time, physical contact, or gifts. If I feel unloved, it could be because you don’t love me—or it could be because you’re expressing it in a way that I don’t take in.
The same is true for appreciation. For some, a monthly paycheck is all the “attaboy” they need. For others, public recognition is meaningful, whether in the form of team e-mail, kudos at a meeting, or organizational awards. For some it’s promotion and titles—even if they earn the same or less pay. And for many of us, it’s the feeling we get from knowing we’re a trusted adviser or indispensable player.
Third, meaningful appreciation has to be authentic. If employees start to sense that everyone receives appreciation for the smallest accomplishments—“thanks for coming to work today”—appreciation
