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

by Douglas Stone

Across the globe, 825 million work hours—a cumulative 94,000 years—are spent each year preparing for and engaging in annual reviews. Afterward we all certainly feel thousands of years older, but are we any wiser?3

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.

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. Pushing harder rarely opens the door to genuine learning. The focus should not be on teaching feedback givers to give. The focus—at work and at home—should be on feedback receivers, helping us all to become more skillful learners.

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. It’s well and good to hope for that special mentor or coach (and cherish the ones you come across). But don’t put off learning until they arrive. Those exceptional teachers and mentors are rare.

So here we are. Torn. Is it possible that feedback is like a gift and like a colonoscopy? Should we hang in there and take it, or turn and run? Is the learning really worth the pain? We are conflicted. Here’s one reason why. 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.

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.

Nothing affects the learning culture of an organization more than the skill with which its executive team receives feedback. And of course, as you move up, candid coaching becomes increasingly scarce, so you have to work harder to get it. But doing so sets the tone and creates an organizational culture of learning, problem solving, and adaptive high performance.

Because feedback givers are abundant and our shortcomings seemingly boundless, we imagine that feedback can trigger us in a googolplex of ways. But here’s more good news: There are only three. We call them “Truth Triggers,” “Relationship Triggers,” and “Identity Triggers.”

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?). Our focus shifts from the feedback itself to the audacity of the person delivering it (are they malicious or just stupid?).

By contrast, Identity Triggers focus neither on the feedback nor on the person offering it. 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. We feel overwhelmed, threatened, ashamed, or off balance. We’re suddenly unsure what to think about ourselves, and question what we stand for. When we’re in this state, the past can look damning and the future bleak. That’s the identity trigger talking, and once it gets tripped, a nuanced discussion of our strengths and weaknesses is not in the cards. We’re just trying to survive.

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. And of shelving or discarding the parts of the feedback that in the end seem off or not what you need right now.

it’s not just the receiver who learns. 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. They each see how they are reacting to the other, showing a way forward that’s more productive than what either imagined before.

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). Often the receiver wants or hears one kind of feedback, while the giver actually means another.

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. And even if you decide that 90 percent of the feedback is off target, that last golden 10 percent might be just the insight you need to grow.

Our perception of feedback is inevitably influenced (and sometimes tainted) by who is giving it to us. We can be triggered by something about the giver—their (lack of) credibility, (un)trustworthiness, or (questionable) motives. We can likewise be triggered by how we feel treated by that person. Do they appreciate us? Are they delivering the feedback in a respectful manner (by e-mail? Are you kidding?). Are they blaming us when the real problem is them?

Research conducted at Stanford points to two very different ways people tell their identity story and the effect that can have on how we experience criticism, challenge, and failure. 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. How they are now is simply how they are now. It’s a pencil sketch of a moment in time, not a portrait in oil and gilded frame. Hard work matters; challenge and even failure are the best ways to learn and improve. 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.

when we use the word “feedback,” we may be referring to any of three different kinds of information: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. Each serves an important purpose, each satisfies different needs, and each comes with its own set of challenges.1

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.

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.

the giver has only partial control over how the balance between coaching and evaluation is received. I may intend my comment about keeping two hands on the steering wheel as commonsense coaching, but you may hear it as evaluation: You’re irresponsible.

This dynamic is rampant in the workplace. Performance management systems are set up to achieve a number of important organizational goals, including both evaluation and coaching. We evaluate employees to ensure that they receive fair promotion and pay, that they are clear about incentives and standing, and that their work is done efficiently and well. We coach to help people grow and improve, preparing them for greater success on that next rung up. All too often, feedback that is offered as coaching is heard as evaluation. (“You’re telling me how to improve, but really, you’re saying you’re not sure I’m cut out for this.”) And efforts to elicit coaching from mentors yield feedback that is laced with evaluation, producing defensiveness and frustration rather than learning. WHAT HELPS? Two things keep us on track: getting our purposes aligned, and separating (as much as possible) evaluation from coaching and appreciation.

Most of this book is advice for feedback receivers. But here, we offer thoughts to both giver and receiver. 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? You won’t always be able to fit the messiness of real life into these clean categories, but it’s worth trying. Reflecting on your purpose before a conversation takes place will help you to be clearer during the conversation itself.

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. Be explicit about what you think the conversation is about, and be explicit about what would be most helpful to you. Then discuss and, if you each need something different, negotiate. 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.

The receiver may need to take the bull by the horns: “You’re offering coaching, but it would help to get a quick evaluation: Am I doing all right overall? If so, then I can relax and am eager for your coaching.” 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?”

The bugle blast of evaluation can drown out the quieter melodies of coaching and appreciation. Even if I walk into my performance review determined to learn how to improve, evaluation can get in the way. If I was expecting an “exceeds expectations” and receive only a “meets expectations,” then whatever coaching I receive is likely to go unheard. That’s true even if the coaching is designed to help me get what I want—an “exceeds” next year. 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?

The evaluation conversation needs to take place first. When a professor hands back a graded paper, the student will first turn to the last page to check their grade. Only then can they take in the instructor’s margin notes. We can’t focus on how to improve until we know where we stand. Ideally, we receive coaching and appreciation year-round, day by day, project by project.

“Feedback” is really three different things, with different purposes: Appreciation — motivates and encourages. Coaching — helps increase knowledge, skill, capability, growth, or raises feelings in the relationship. Evaluation — tells you where you stand, aligns expectations, and informs decision making. We need all three, but often talk at cross-purposes. Evaluation is the loudest and can drown out the other two. (And all coaching includes a bit of evaluation.) Be thoughtful about what you need and what you’re being offered, and get aligned.

As receivers, we shouldn’t use our views to dismiss the giver’s views, but neither should we discard our own. Working to first understand their views doesn’t mean we pretend we don’t have life experiences or opinions. Instead, we need to understand their views even as we’re aware of our own. And that’s almost impossible to do unless we make a key shift—away from that’s wrong and toward tell me more: Let’s figure out why we see this differently. If the reason we see a particular piece of feedback differently isn’t simply that one of us is wrong, then what is the reason? There are two: We have different data, and we interpret that data differently.

Life would be a lot easier if we routinely asked that question about different data. But we don’t. Why? Because wrong spotting is so much more compelling than difference spotting. Being aware of what they see that we don’t is just not as delicious as listening for how they’re wrong. And once we spot an error, we can’t contain ourselves; we have to jump in and set things straight. But we have to fight that instinct. We have to consciously and persistently choose to ask about their data and share our own.

No matter how clearly you define the criteria and the metrics, somebody has to apply the criteria to a person’s performance, and that involves making judgments. If advice is autobiographical, so is evaluation. The evaluation we give people is a reflection of our own (or our organization’s) preferences, assumptions, values, and goals. They might be broadly shared or idiosyncratic, but either way, they are ours. And that’s as it should be. People who are skilled coaches or evaluators are valuable precisely because their gifts of judgment are strong. An iPhone app can tell a singer if she’s hitting each note precisely; she hires a voice coach for his judgment, his experienced point of view. He can help her sing in a way that moves people. An app can’t tell you whether you are leading effectively, creating cohesion, persistence, or energy. The people you lead can. The goal shouldn’t be to remove interpretation or judgment. It should be to make judgments thoughtfully, and once made, to have them be transparent and discussable.

Feedback is delivered in vague labels, and we are prone to wrong spotting. To understand your feedback, discuss where it is: Coming from: their data and interpretations Going to: advice, consequences, expectations Ask: What’s different about The data we are looking at Our interpretations and implicit rules Ask: What’s right about the feedback to seek out what’s legit and what concerns you have in common. Working together to get a more complete picture maximizes the chances you will (both) learn something.

strong emotions can seem as if they are part of the environment rather than part of us. It’s not that I was angry, we think, it’s that the situation was tense. But situations are not tense. People are tense.

All of these amplifiers—our tendency to subtract certain emotions from our self-description, to see missteps as situational rather than personality-driven, and to focus on our good intentions rather than our impact on others—add up. And so we get statistics like this: 37 percent of Americans report being victims of workplace bullies, but fewer than 1 percent report being bullies. It’s true that one bully can have many victims, but it’s unlikely that each averages thirty-seven.11 What’s more likely is that at least some percentage of those feeling bullied are receiving ill treatment from people who are unaware of their impact. They judge themselves by their intentions (“I was just trying to get the job done right!”) and attribute others’ reactions to their hypersensitivity (character) or the context (“Look, it was a tense situation. Anyone would have reacted that way”). Telling this latter group not to bully others is no solution, because they don’t realize that they’re doing so. Instead, discussing the impact of specific behaviors (and prohibiting them when appropriate) helps the offending party see themselves in the moment and begins to illuminate their blind spot.

“What do you see me doing, or failing to do, that is getting in my own way?” This question is more specific about the honesty you desire as well as your interest in the impact you have on others. It’s also a narrower and easier question for others to answer. They may start timidly (“Well, on occasion I suppose that you sometimes . . .”), but if you respond with genuine curiosity and appreciation, they’ll be able to paint you a picture that is clear, detailed, and useful.

We all have blind spots because we: can’t see our own leaky faces can’t hear our tone of voice are unaware of even big patterns of behavior Blind spots are amplified by: Emotional Math: We discount our emotions, while others count them double. Attribution: We attribute our failure to the situation, while others attribute it to our character. Impact-Intent Gap: We judge ourselves by our intentions, while others judge us by our impact on them. To see ourselves and our blind spots we need help from others. Invite others to be an honest mirror to help you see yourself in the moment. Ask: How am I getting in my own way?

New ideas often come from those without traditional credibility, who are freer to think outside the box precisely because they don’t know there is a box. History abounds with examples of battles won thanks to the insight of a junior corporal with a deft suggestion. Even in personal relationships, a fresh perspective can cut through a complicated history and the elaborate rationales we construct over time. A new friend can see ways in which an old friend isn’t being fair, or make a suggestion that could ease a dynamic between you and your half brother that is entrenched in habit and history. When someone asks, “Why do you let your business partner put you down so much?,” pause before you explain what she’s like and how you have to know her to understand. And consider whether their ideas for changing the situation just might help.

the question of intentions is a separate topic from the accuracy or helpfulness of feedback. The giver might be jealous or mean-spirited or totally nuts, and yet their feedback might be dead right, the most useful thing we’ve heard in months. Or maybe they really and truly do have our best interests at heart. But their suggestion that you wear those yellow leather leggings to the office? Still a bad idea. So treat trust and content as separate topics, because they are separate topics. Explore what might make sense about the feedback itself. And you can share with the giver the impact that their feedback has had on you, without insisting that you’re sure of their intentions. Don’t use the relationship trigger of trust to automatically disqualify the feedback.

Want to fast-track your growth? Go directly to the people you have the hardest time with. Ask them what you’re doing that’s exacerbating the situation. They will surely tell you.

There are three moves that can help us manage relationship triggers and avoid switchtracking. First, we need to be able to spot the two topics on the table (the original feedback and the relationship concern). Next, we need to give each topic its own conversation track (and get both people on the same track at the same time). Third, we need to help givers be clearer about their original feedback, especially when the feedback itself relates to the relationship.

The template for signposting is this: “I see two related but separate topics for us to discuss. They are both important. Let’s discuss each topic fully but separately, giving each topic its own track. After we’ve finished discussing the first topic, we’ll swing back around and discuss the second one.” Of course normal people don’t talk this way, and signposting isn’t a natural move for most of us. It requires us to step outside the conversation and look in on it. In fact, it’s that absence of flow that is one of the reasons it’s so helpful. It breaks the normal reactive conversation pattern by being hyper-explicit about what’s going on. Use your own words, but be clear. Which topic should you discuss first? There are two factors to consider. First, an edge should be given to the original feedback. That’s what the other person wanted to discuss, and all things being equal, you’re better off starting with their topic. But the second factor to take into account is emotion. If your relationship trigger reaction is so strong that it gets in the way of your being able to take in what they are saying, then you should say so and propose that your topic be discussed first. This will help you hear their topic, and at the end of the day, that’s what they care about most.

We can be triggered by who is giving us the feedback. What we think about the giver: Are they credible? Do we trust them? Did they deliver our feedback with good judgment and skill? How we feel treated by the giver: Do we feel accepted? Appreciated? Like our autonomy is respected? Relationship triggers create switchtrack conversations, where we have two topics on the table and talk past each other. Spot the two topics and give each its own track. Surprise players in the feedback game: Strangers People we find difficult People we find difficult see us at our worst and may be especially well placed to be honest mirrors about areas where we have the most room to grow. Listen for relationship issues lurking beneath coaching.

As one HR executive joked, “In HR, we’re not happy until you’re not happy.” Of course, everyone knows that the HR function is crucial, but busy people can still find it intrusive. We’re quick to attribute character as the cause: Those in HR are compulsive, uptight, and excessively rule-bound. On the flip side, HR is frustrated by the deadbeats across all functions who are behind on their time sheets, submit perfunctory performance reviews, and skip out on mandatory training. Why do so many of our people behave like flaky, petulant teenagers? At the organizational level, these role tensions serve important purposes, but at the interpersonal level they can be destructive, especially if people are misidentifying the source of the conflict. It’s essential to disentangle the individual from their role by taking two steps back and asking: How are our roles contributing to how we see each other, and to the feedback we give each other? How much is role, and how much is personality or performance? Even if you don’t have an answer, just asking yourself the question, or discussing it between you, can shift awareness.

Seeing Feedback in the System One Step Back: In what ways does the feedback reflect differences in preferences, assumptions, styles, or implicit rules between us? Two Steps Back: Do our roles make it more or less likely that we might bump into each other? Three Steps Back: What other players influence our behavior and choices? Are physical setups, processes, or structures also contributing to the problem? Circling Back to Me: What am I doing (or failing to do) that is contributing to the dynamic between us?

If we’re not careful, “that thing the guys at Corporate do” morphs into “those selfish #$%s over in Corporate.” The first is a description of an action; the second is a blanket judgment of the people. We are less likely to make that leap from description to damnation if we see the conflict as a simple intersection, perhaps compounded by clashing roles, inside a larger system.

Understanding that a problem has multiple causes doesn’t limit our options for how we move forward to solve that problem. Discipline or punishment may be appropriate, as in cases where actions are illegal, unethical, inappropriate, or otherwise violate policy. Sometimes managers will say, “How can I discipline the employee when I myself contributed to the problem?” That’s like saying, “How can we punish a bank robber when we at the bank contributed to the problem by having a faulty security system in place?” Well, it’s not good to have a faulty security system in place, and if you have one, it’s good to know about it. But the fact that your security system is faulty has nothing to do with whether the robber should go to jail.

Another challenge for absorbers is that resentment can build over time. Deeper down we know realistically that it’s not all us, yet others don’t seem to be taking their fair share of responsibility. Absorbers also start to bump up against what they can change on their own—when others aren’t willing to look at their part of the problem, there’s only so much one person can do to affect the system. It’s also worth noting here that absorbers can be prone to remaining in situations of abuse. In an emotionally or physically abusive relationship, the person doing the yelling, denigrating, or lashing out is able to distract attention from their own hurtful behavior by pointing to what the victim did to provoke it. The person giving the feedback (“You shouldn’t provoke me”) might be accurately describing the victim’s part in the system. What they leave out, of course, is their own behavior, which is hurtful, harmful, and unfair. This is one reason that such relationships are so lonely, and why it is so tough to navigate your way out of an abusive relationship system.