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

by Douglas Stone

This comment is both unclear and passive-aggressive. You’re effectively saying, “I’ll raise my concern just enough to make you wonder what I think, but not so much that I take responsibility for having raised it or that I’m clear about my actual view.” Talk about it or don’t—but don’t “sort of” talk about it.

thought you’d get a 5, because you did think that. But, again, you don’t yet understand why you got a 4, so a request to change it is premature. After the discussion you may agree that a 4 is the appropriate rating, or you may think you deserve a 5. If so, with what you’ve learned, you’ll be able to articulate your reasoning. Result: Your boss says “no.” End of story. End of learning. End of chance to influence. Or, your boss says she’ll consider it, but has no new information or way of thinking about the matter that would make any difference.

You want to inquire into several things: You want to learn more about the criteria and how they were applied in your case. You want to understand the relationship between what you were told last year about customers and the current criteria. You want to know if anything has changed, and what other data—about peers, the market, pressures from above—might be relevant.

So keep it simple, and here’s how: Name one thing. At the end of the day, is there one thing you and the giver (or givers) see as most important for you to work on? It should be something meaningful and useful, but don’t get paralyzed by that. It doesn’t have to be the one perfect thing. That sends you right back to no things. Just a useful thing. A place to start.

ASK: “WHAT’S ONE THING YOU SEE ME DOING THAT GETS IN MY OWN WAY?” How to elicit just one thing? Don’t say, “I’d like some feedback.” That’s too vague. Instead say: “What’s one thing I could work on?” Or, as we discuss in chapter 4, you can sharpen it by asking: “What’s one thing you see me doing, or failing to do, that’s getting in my own way?” This gives your giver permission to go a little further than usual (hey, you did ask), and it helps them prioritize and cut to the chase.

One last way to seek out one change that could have a big impact is to ask: “What’s one thing I could change that would make a difference to

But here’s the challenge: In any contest between change and the status quo, the status quo has home field advantage. All things being equal, we won’t change.

DON’T DECIDE, EXPERIMENT Here’s our pitch: Experiment. Try the feedback out, especially when the stakes are low and the potential upside is great. Not because you know that it’s right or you know it will help. But because it’s possible it will help. And because actions so often have unforeseen consequences, and trying new things stirs the pot. And because you (we) don’t try new things often enough.

“Try it on,” she repeated. “Assume the student is on to something.”

IT’S NOT ALL-AND-ALWAYS Lowering the stakes often means reframing the question you are asking yourself when it comes to feedback. If the question is “Should I go to yoga for the rest of my life?” the answer will always be no. If it’s “Should I try yoga for one morning and see what I think?” the costs drop dramatically.

But in the aggregate, there are significant life rewards for being willing to test out feedback even when you’re not sure it’s right, or even pretty sure it’s wrong. At the very least, it shows the giver you are open to trying their advice, and there are surely relationship advantages to that.

Sometimes we don’t do the right, smart, effective, healthy thing because we don’t know what that is. But sometimes we know exactly what the right, smart, effective, healthy thing is, and we still don’t do it.

Odysseus “precommits” to honoring his current desire, preventing his ability to waver when faced with future temptation.

there a way that I can not only make the choice to change but also bind Monday Morning guy to abide by my choice?

As you work to change, there’s a pattern that’s worth getting to know, because it’s so common and has such a profound effect on our behavior and choices.

As we begin to implement our change we may find that our level of happiness immediately drops. It’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. We get worse at whatever we’re doing rather than better; we feel vaguely depressed.

That’s how things feel now. And we begin to wonder about the future. How is this going to turn out, this new thing we’re doing? We’ve done nothing but head downhill, as if pulled by gravity. Do we keep sledding downward until we crash? Of course not. We should stop. This effort to change was a big mistake. We cancel the change. Sorry, Mr. Sunday Night, we tried. It just didn’t work out. It’s a sad story, but it makes sense . . . if, that is, our projection that we are going to continue to go down is correct. But what if we’re at the bottom of the curve and are about to head up the happiness slope? What if we are on our way to surpassing our previous level of contentment and skill? In other words, what if the curve is in the unlikely shape of a J?

And more important, you are likely to feel worse before you feel better. In these moments, it’s useful to know that a common trajectory isn’t further downward, but—eventually—back up.

This suggests that committing in advance to working at something for a specific amount of time—a time that reaches past that most challenging first stage—can be useful. Give it two weeks, thirty days, a fiscal year—whatever seems like a reasonable duration to test whether this new behavior might actually help.

Your aim is to find ways that you and your coach can collaborate so that communication is clear and efficient and you learn what’s most important to learn as quickly as you can. The goal is to work together to minimize the interference. And that’s a negotiation. You’ll have preferences, and your coach will have preferences. You’ll make requests that won’t work from the coach’s point of view. That’s the nature of these conversations. It’s not about making demands; it’s about figuring out together what works best.

I tend to get defensive at first, and then I circle back later and figure out why the feedback is helpful. So if I seem defensive, don’t be put off. I’ll be thinking about what you’ve said, even if it doesn’t sound like