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

by Douglas Stone

feedback is not just what gets ranked; it’s what gets thanked, commented on, and invited back or dropped.

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.

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

Our ability to sort out how we’re feeling, why we’re upset, where we are bumping into one another, drives the long-term health and happiness of those relationships.

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

Most of us do just fine with positive feedback, although even praise can sometimes leave us uneasy. Perhaps we’re not sure it’s genuine or we fear we haven’t earned it.

Trying to ignore a triggered reaction without first identifying its cause is like dealing with a fire by disconnecting the smoke alarm.

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

Truth Triggers are set off by the substance of the feedback itself—it’s somehow off, unhelpful, or simply untrue. In response, we feel indignant, wronged, and exasperated.

Relationship Triggers are tripped by the particular person who is giving us this gift of feedback.

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.

Identity trigger

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.

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.

That’s the nature of blind spots. We’re not only blind to certain things about ourselves; we’re also blind to the fact that we’re blind.

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

I don’t like how I am being treated, or I don’t trust your judgment.

Relationship Triger

“What’s the dynamic between us and what are we each contributing to the problem?”

Sort out the relationship trigger

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.

These folks see themselves as ever evolving, ever growing. They have what is called a “growth” identity.

Inside a growth identity, feedback is valuable information about where one stands now and what to work on next.

But appreciation also conveys, “I see you,” “I know how hard you’ve been working,” and “You matter to me.”

Coaching can be sparked by two different kinds of needs. One is the need to improve your knowledge or skills in order to build capability and meet novel challenges.

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.

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.

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).

It’s an additional layer of opinion on top of it. And it is the bullwhip of negative judgment—from ourselves or others—that produces much of our anxiety around feedback.

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.

Three qualities are required for appreciation to count. First, it has to be specific.

Over time, appreciation deficits set in. And these often become two-way: I think you don’t appreciate all I do and all I put up with, and you think I don’t appreciate whatever-it-is you do.

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

Third, meaningful appreciation has to be authentic.

We’re trying to coach or to be coached, but because our efforts are resisted, unappreciated, or ineffective, we end up with a coaching shortfall.

The coaching message “here’s how to improve” also implicitly conveys the evaluative message that “so far you aren’t doing it as well as you might.”

Cross-transactions happen when the giver and receiver are misaligned. The fix? Discuss the purpose of the feedback explicitly.

(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?

Be explicit about what you think the conversation is about, and be explicit about what would be most helpful to you.

the evaluation conversation and the coaching conversation should be separated by at least days, and probably longer.

The evaluation conversation needs to take place first.

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

Because there’s almost always something wrong—something the feedback giver is overlooking, shortchanging, or misunderstanding.

“Let me describe what I mean and you can ask me questions to see if I’m making sense.”

Best feedback

Actually, once you’re looking for them, spotting labels is easy; what’s hard is remembering to look.

After you spot a label, there’s a second step: You have to fight the temptation to fill in your own meaning.

If we strip back the label, we find that feedback has both a past and a future. There’s a looking-back component (“here’s what I noticed”), and a looking-forward component (“here’s what you need to do”). The usual feedback labels don’t tell us much in either direction. 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.

ASK WHERE THE FEEDBACK IS COMING FROM Feedback givers arrive at their labels in two steps: (1) they observe data, and (2) they interpret that data—they tell a story about what it means.

Data can also include the giver’s emotional reactions.

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.