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

by Douglas Stone

There is encouragement here, but our primary purpose is to take an honest look at why receiving feedback is hard, and to provide a framework and some tools that can help you metabolize challenging, even crazy-making information and use it to fuel insight and growth.

When we ask people to list their most difficult conversations, feedback always comes up.

When we give feedback, we notice that the receiver isn’t good at receiving it. When we receive feedback, we notice that the giver isn’t good at giving it.

As we worked to develop ways to approach feedback differently, we soon realized that the key player is not the giver, but the receiver. And

Feedback includes any information you get about yourself. In the broadest sense, it’s how we learn about ourselves from our experiences and from other people—how we learn from life.

So feedback is not just what gets ranked; it’s what gets thanked, commented on, and invited back or dropped. Feedback can be formal or informal, direct or implicit; it can be blunt or baroque, totally obvious or so subtle that you’re not sure what it is.

Sometime after World War II the term began to be used in industrial relations when talking about people and performance management.

Tighten up here, dial back there, and like some Dr. Seuss contraption, you’re all tuned up for optimum, star-bellied performance.

Fifty-one percent of respondents in one recent study said their performance review was unfair or inaccurate, and one in four employees dreads their performance review more than anything else in their working lives.

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.

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.

We like the word “pull” because it highlights a truth often ignored: that the key variable in your growth is not your teacher or your supervisor. It’s you.

The majority of our learning is going to have to come from folks like these, so if we’re serious about growth and improvement, we have no choice but to get good at learning from just about anyone.

We may be wired to learn, but it turns out that learning about ourselves is a whole different ball 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 does. And our life experiences confirm it. We’ve all had a coach or family member who nurtured our talent and believed in us when no one else did.

In addition to our desire to learn and improve, we long for something else that is fundamental: to be loved, accepted, and respected just as we are. And the very fact of feedback suggests that how we are is not quite okay. So we bristle: Why can’t you accept me for who I am and how I am? Why are there always more adjustments, more upgrades? Why is it so hard for you to understand me? Hey boss, hey team. Hey wife, hey Dad. Here I am. This is me.

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

ability to receive feedback well is not an inborn trait but a skill that can be cultivated. It may be fraught, but it can be taught. Whether you currently think of yourself as someone who receives feedback well or poorly, you can get better. This book shows you how.

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.

The bold-faced benefits of receiving feedback well are clear: Our relationships are richer, our self-esteem more secure, and, of course, we learn—we get better at things and feel good about that. And perhaps most important to some of us, when we get good at receiving feedback even our toughest feedback interactions come to feel a little less threatening.

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.

Being with people who are grounded and open is energizing. When you’re open to feedback your working relationships have more trust and more humor, you collaborate more productively and solve problems more easily.

“We’re entering a world that increasingly rewards individual aspiration and persistence and can measure precisely who is contributing and who is not. If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you.

If you seek out coaching, your direct reports will seek out coaching. If you take responsibility for your mistakes, your peers will be encouraged to fess up as well; if you try out a suggestion from a coworker, they will be more open to trying out your suggestions.

Nothing affects the learning culture of an organization more than the skill with which its executive team receives feedback.

“I don’t know,” cries the boy with delight as he excitedly digs through the dung. “But I think there’s a pony in here somewhere!” Receiving feedback can be like that. It’s not always pleasant. But there just might be a pony in there somewhere.

This kind of feedback triggers us: Our heart pounds, our stomach clenches, our thoughts race and scatter. We usually think of that surge of emotion as being “in the way”—a distraction to be brushed aside, an obstacle to overcome. After all, when we’re in the grip of a triggered reaction we feel lousy, the world looks darker, and our usual communication skills slip just out of reach. We can’t think, we can’t learn, and so we defend, attack, or withdraw in defeat.

Triggers are also information—a kind of map—that can help us locate the source of the trouble.

There are only three. We call them “Truth Triggers,” “Relationship Triggers,” and “Identity Triggers.” Each is set off for different reasons, and each provokes a different set of reactions and responses from us.

Truth Triggers are set off by the substance of the feedback itself—it’s somehow off, unhelpful, or simply untrue.

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?).

Identity triggers are all about us.

We’re suddenly unsure what to think about ourselves, and question what we stand for.

Our triggered reactions are not obstacles because they are unreasonable. Our triggers are obstacles because they keep us from engaging skillfully in the conversation.

Receiving feedback well is a process of sorting and filtering—of learning how the other person sees things; of trying on ideas that at first seem a poor fit; of experimenting.

We reject, defend, or counterattack, sometimes in the conversation but always in our minds.

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. Helpful pointers are feedback, and so is getting voted off the island.

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.

But in the context of receiving feedback, “understanding” what the other person means—what they see, what they’re worried about, what they’re recommending—is not so easy. In fact, it’s flat-out hard.

Sometimes feedback that we know is wrong really is wrong. And sometimes, it’s just feedback in our blind spot.

straighten things out. Managing truth triggers is not about pretending there’s something to learn, or saying you think it’s right if you think it’s wrong. It’s about recognizing that it’s always more complicated than it appears and working hard to first understand.

Relationship triggers produce hurt, suspicion, and sometimes anger. The way out is to disentangle the feedback from the relationship issues it triggers, and to discuss both, clearly and separately.

We call this dynamic Switchtracking.

The giver is telling us that we need to change, and in response we think: “You think the problem is me? That’s hilarious, because the problem is very obviously you.” The problem is not that I am oversensitive; it’s that you are insensitive.

So feedback in relationships is rarely the story of you or me. It’s more often the story of you and me. It’s the story of our relationship system.

Instead, work to understand it this way: “What’s the dynamic between us and what are we each contributing to the problem?”

Cultivate a Growth Identity In addition to her tendency to distort the feedback, Laila has a mindset challenge: She sees the world as one big test.

One identity story assumes our traits are “fixed”: Whether we are capable or bumbling, lovable or difficult, smart or dull, we aren’t going to change. Hard work and practice won’t help; we are as we are. Feedback reveals “how we are,” so there’s a lot at stake.

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.