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

by Douglas Stone

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.

Why is it that when we give feedback we so often feel right, yet when we receive feedback it so often feels wrong? After

Rather, they’re based on how we are hearing what’s said and which kind of feedback we think we are getting.

highlight that when we use the word “feedback,” we may be referring to any of three different kinds of information: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation.

Appreciation motivates us—it gives us a bounce in our step and the energy to redouble our efforts.

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. They don’t want advice. They want appreciation.

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. In the realm of executive coaching, "coaching" is sometimes used as a term of art to describe a facilitative approach to learning, where the coachee sets the agenda. We include this, but use the word more generally to include mentoring or any other feedback that is intended to help someone grow.

In the second kind of coaching feedback, the feedback giver is not responding to your need to develop certain skills. Instead, they are identifying a problem in your relationship: Something is missing, something is wrong. This type of coaching is often prompted by emotion: hurt, fear, anxiety, confusion, loneliness, betrayal, or anger. The giver wants this situation to change, and (often) that means they want you to change:

Evaluation tells you where you stand. It’s an assessment, ranking, or rating.

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. Part of what can be hard about evaluation is concern about possible consequences—real or imagined. You didn’t qualify (real), and never will (predicted or imagined).

And it is the bullwhip of negative judgment—from ourselves or others—that produces much of our anxiety around feedback.

The main purpose is to entertain the TV audience. This was feedback to him only in the loosest sense. It was evaluation, certainly, almost a parody of evaluation:

It’s easy to see the distinction between entertainment and real feedback when it involves someone else. But when it’s about us, it’s harder. These days it’s more important than ever to learn how to make that distinction. The arenas for vitriolic “feedback” are proliferating: online comments, message boards, blogs, talk radio, reality TV. Harsh commentary, malicious attacks, and anonymous venting in these forums are common, catering to reader cheers or jeers. The commenters are focused on saying something they think is clever or biting or attention-getting, and they may not even be aware of the real people behind the post they are using as a punching bag.

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 need coaching to accelerate learning, to focus our time and energy where it really matters, and to keep our relationships healthy and functioning. And we need appreciation if all the sweat and tears we put into our jobs and our relationships are going to feel worthwhile.

Because evaluation is so loud and can have such hurtful consequences, it’s tempting to consider removing it from the feedback mix. Do we really need it? It is smart to avoid evaluation when your purpose is coaching. Don’t say, “You’re no good,” when what you really mean to say is “Here’s how to get better.”

When evaluation is absent, we use coaching and appreciation to try to figure out where we stand. Why does the boss give me so much coaching on handling the customer more effectively? And why was I singled out for appreciation in that first group e-mail, but not the second? Should I be concerned? In the absence of clear signals, I’ll keep putting my ear to the ground to listen for rumblings in anything that passes by.

The survey found that “Yes” answers on twelve key questions—dubbed the Q12—had strong correlations with employee satisfaction, high retention, and high productivity. Of

Question 4: “In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?” Question 5: “Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?” Question 6: “Is there someone at work who encourages my development?”

Second, appreciation has to come in a form the receiver values and hears clearly.

And for many of us, it’s the feeling we get from knowing we’re a trusted adviser or indispensable player. I know you appreciate me because we laugh a lot, or because you come to me first with tough challenges.

First, I might want a different type of feedback from the type you gave me—for example, I was looking for appreciation, but you gave me evaluation. Second, you may have intended to give me one kind of feedback, but I interpreted it incorrectly—for example, you sought to give me coaching, but I heard it as evaluation.

The problem wasn’t that Donald’s feedback was wrong or poorly delivered. His coaching was thoughtful and actually quite useful. April’s distress results from the cross-transaction: She wanted one thing and got another.

Cody gets evaluation. And like April, he’s dismayed: “How is that going to help me figure out what I’m doing?”

Evelyn gets appreciation—the great big thanks that April craved. But, of course, what Evelyn wanted was evaluation. She wants to know where she ranks in relation to her peers as partnership looms.

April wants appreciation but gets coaching, Cody wants coaching but gets evaluation, and Evelyn wants evaluation but gets appreciation.

there’s some amount of evaluation in all coaching.

Elsie’s reaction to her dad’s feedback reminds us that the giver has only partial control over how the balance between coaching and evaluation is received.

All too often, feedback that is offered as coaching is heard as evaluation.

Two things keep us on track: getting our purposes aligned, and separating (as much as possible) evaluation from coaching and appreciation.

Ask yourself three questions: (1) What’s my purpose in giving/receiving this feedback? (2) Is it the right purpose from my point of view? (3) Is it the right purpose from the other person’s point of view?

Is your primary goal coaching, evaluation, or appreciation? Are you trying to improve, to assess, or to say thanks and be supportive?

During the conversation, check in periodically: “I’m intending to give you coaching. Is that how you’re hearing it? From your point of view, is that what you need?” The receiver may respond that it would be nice to know if she’s doing anything right—a signal that she’s craving some appreciation and maybe a bit of positive evaluation.

Remember: Explicit disagreement is better than implicit misunderstanding. Explicit disagreement leads to clarity, and is the first step in each of you getting your differing needs met.

Or: “You’re saying this is coaching, but I’m hearing it as evaluation, too. Am I right that you’re saying I’m falling behind?”

Instead of hearing the coaching, I’m focused on the thoughts and emotions broadcast by my internal voice: What about all the times I bailed you out with headquarters? What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with me? And what will this mean for my compensation?

If your organization has formal feedback conversations at yearly or semiyearly intervals (where, for example, supervisor and supervisee develop objectives or a learning plan for the coming year, with specific skills and outcomes targeted), the evaluation conversation and the coaching conversation should be separated by at least days, and probably longer.

We can’t focus on how to improve until we know where we stand.

Be thoughtful about what you need and what you’re being offered, and get aligned.

We don’t want to take feedback that’s invalid or unhelpful and so, quite reasonably, we screen for that. We listen to the feedback with this question in mind: “What’s wrong with this feedback?”

Before we determine whether feedback is right or wrong, we first have to understand

Would Holly agree with Irwin’s feedback if she understood it? Maybe. Or maybe not. But at least she’d be in a better position to decide.

the angry tone, the irritating habits that we endure. When we use a label, we’re seeing that movie, and it’s painfully clear. It’s easy to forget that when we convey the label to someone else, the movie is not attached. All they’re hearing is a few vague words. This means that even when we “take” the feedback, it’s easy to misconstrue the meaning.

Actually, once you’re looking for them, spotting labels is easy; what’s hard is remembering to look. It’s like counting the number of times someone says the word “and.” It’s impossible to do if you aren’t consciously trying to, but once you decide to listen for it, it’s simple. Same with labels: if you’re listening for them, you’ll hear them everywhere.

You won’t know until you talk about it, and you won’t talk about it if you assume you already know.

So to clarify the feedback under the label we need to “be specific” about two things: (1) where the feedback is coming from, and (2) where the feedback is going.

Data can also include the giver’s emotional reactions. “When

It is said that all advice is autobiographical, and this, in part, is what is meant. We interpret what we see based on our own life experiences, assumptions, preferences, priorities, and implicit rules about how things work and how one should be. I understand your life through the lens of my life; my advice for you is based on me.

He notes that while computers are organized around managing and accessing data, human intelligence is organized around stories.

Bad parenting is not the data; it’s our auto-story about the encounter.