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

by Douglas Stone

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. 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: “You don’t make our family a priority,” “Why am I always the one who has to apologize?”

EVALUATION When your boss says your performance is “extremely strong” and that he’s grooming you for his job, that’s evaluation (in this case, positive). 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. “You are not a good husband” is shorthand for “You are not a good husband compared with what I hoped for in a husband” or “compared with my saintly father” or “compared with my last three husbands.” Evaluations align expectations, clarify consequences, and inform decision making.

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.

WE NEED ALL THREE 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.

EVALUATION SHORTFALLS 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.”

APPRECIATION SHORTFALLS Appreciation can seem the least important of the three kinds of feedback—who needs flowery words or flattery? Aren’t you getting a paycheck? We’re still married, aren’t we? Yet the absence of appreciation can leave a gaping hole in any relationship—personal or professional.

Sure, I want to know how to improve, but I also want to know that you see how hard I’m working, how much I’m trying, what I do that’s special. Without that, your coaching isn’t going to get through, because I’m listening for something else.

First Break All the Rules, authors Marcus Buckingham...

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. Call it Mutual Appreciation Deficit Disorder (MADD), and you have the ingredients for a troubled working relationship. Second, appreciation has to come in a form the receiver values and hears clearly.

Gary Chapman makes a similar point about love in his book The 5 Love Languages.

Third, meaningful appreciation has to be authentic. If employees start to sense that everyone receives appreciation for the smallest accomplishments—“thanks for coming to work today”—appreciation inflation sets in, and the currency becomes worthless. Nor can appreciation be issued through gritted teeth: “I can’t believe I inherited such a screwup, but I need to check this appreciation box, so, uh, good work!” Nobody’s fooled, and now they trust you even less.

Donald and his colleagues are 0 for 3 on good feedback conversations. Put another way, they’re 3 for 3 on cross-transactions. In this farcical round-robin, April wants appreciation but gets coaching, Cody wants coaching but gets evaluation, and Evelyn wants evaluation but gets appreciation.

A COMPLICATION: THERE IS ALWAYS EVALUATION IN COACHING

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.

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.

GET ALIGNED: KNOW THE PURPOSE AND DISCUSS IT Cross-transactions happen when the giver and receiver are misaligned. The fix? Discuss the purpose of the feedback explicitly.

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.

SEPARATE EVALUATION FROM COACHING AND APPRECIATION The bugle blast of evaluation can drown out the quieter melodies of coaching and appreciation.

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.

Understanding whether we are getting appreciation, coaching, or evaluation is a first step. But even when our purposes are all lined up, feedback can be hard to understand, and is all too easily dismissed.

Summary: SOME KEY IDEAS “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.

First Understand Shift from “That’s Wrong” to “Tell Me More”

WE’RE GOOD AT WRONG SPOTTING

Why is wrong spotting so easy? Because there’s almost always something wrong—something the feedback giver is overlooking, shortchanging, or misunderstanding. About you, about the situation, about the constraints you’re under. And givers compound the problem by delivering feedback that is vague, making it easy for us to overlook, shortchange, and misunderstand what they are saying. But in the end, wrong spotting not only defeats wrong feedback, it defeats learning.

UNDERSTANDING IS JOB ONE Before we determine whether feedback is right or wrong, we first have to understand it. That sounds pretty obvious, but in fact, we usually skip understanding and dive in with instant judgments.

FEEDBACK ARRIVES WITH GENERIC LABELS Feedback often arrives packaged like generic items in the supermarket labeled “soup” or “cola.” The labels the giver uses seem clear—“Be more proactive,” “Don’t be so selfish,” “Act your age”—but there’s actually little content to them. You would never eat the soup can label, and there’s no nutritional value to a feedback label either.

GIVER AND RECEIVER INTERPRET THE LABEL DIFFERENTLY Labels always mean something specific to the giver. Think of what bugs you about someone close to you—your brother, boss, friend, or coworker. What probably popped into your head is a label: “He’s so ____ .” “She’s too ____ .” “My spouse never ____s.” “My coworker is so un-____ .”

This “what was heard” versus “what was meant” coaching mismatch is surprisingly common: Coaching What Was Heard What Was Meant Be more confident. Give the impression that you know things even if you don’t. Have the confidence to say you don’t know when you don’t know. Don’t be so picky about whom you date. You’re not a great catch, so you don’t deserve a great catch. Don’t make the mistakes I’ve made. Don’t end up like me. I wish you weren’t so darn opinionated. Don’t be interesting to talk to. Be apathetic and bland. You don’t listen to me or anyone else. It’s exhausting. Evaluations can be just as confusing: Evaluation What Was Heard What Was Meant You’ve received a 4 out of 5 this year. Last year I got a 4. I worked much harder this year and got another 4. Hard work isn’t noticed. No one gets a 5. Few get a 4 and you’ve now done it twice! You are doing outstanding work. I’d like to see you again. You are my soul mate. That was fun. Given how often we talk in labels, it’s somewhat astonishing that any feedback changes hands successfully.

Play “Spot the Label” In the course of your life, you’ll encounter people who are unusually skilled at giving you feedback. They’ll say things like, “Let me describe what I mean and you can ask me questions to see if I’m making sense.” But most givers aren’t this skilled, and so it falls to you as receiver to work to understand what’s under the label. The surest way of doing that is to spot the label in the first place.

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

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

WHAT’S UNDER THE LABEL? The most common advice about feedback is this: Be specific. It’s good advice—but it’s not specific enough. What does it mean to be specific, and specific about what?

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” abo...

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.

They Confuse Data and Interpretation (We All Do)

The process of moving from data to interpretation happens in the blink of an eye and is largely unconscious. Artificial intelligence expert Roger Schank has an observation about this: He notes that while computers are organized around managing and accessing data, human intelligence is organized around stories.2 We take in selective data and make immediate interpretations, resulting in instant judgment-laced labels: That meeting was a waste of time. Your skirt’s too short. Those people at the next table can’t parent properly.

So feedback givers rarely share the raw observations behind their labels because they simply aren’t aware of them. It’s up to you to help them sort it out. Your goal here is not to ignore or dismiss the interpretation. Data is crucial, but so is the interpretation.

ASK WHERE THE FEEDBACK IS GOING

Often, though, feedback will have a forward-looking component. As we’ll see below, with coaching, that piece is about advice; with evaluation, it’s about consequences and expectations.

When Receiving Coaching: Clarify Advice

So on the receiving end we have to help the giver be clearer. “Sparkles? Describe what you mean. Show me some examples of speeches that sparkle. And show me some examples of speeches you think fell flat.” The contrast is often illuminating and together you’ll home in on what makes an acceptance speech effective.

When Receiving Evaluation: Clarify Consequences and Expectations

You already have the skills for asking forward-looking questions; the trick is using them.

the key is remembering to do it when it matters. Toward this end, it’s useful to have a short list of good questions in your back pocket before you walk into any evaluation conversation.

SHIFT FROM WRONG SPOTTING TO DIFFERENCE SPOTTING

This, in fact, is a big reason we wrong spot: We know that the feedback is wrong or off target because we have our own experiences and views, and our views are not the same as theirs. Therefore, theirs are wrong. The only other choice would seem to be that their views are right and ours are wrong, but that seems even less likely. There’s another way to think about it. 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.