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

by Douglas Stone

Learning about ourselves can be painful—sometimes brutally so—and the feedback is often delivered with a forehead-slapping lack of awareness for what makes people tick. It can

feel less like a “gift of learning” and more like a colonoscopy.

that there is “no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of.” We are each “lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms.”

When something goes wrong and I am part of it, I will tend to attribute my actions to the situation; you will tend to attribute my actions to my character.

Given that even good intentions can result in negative impacts, this contributes to the gap in the story you tell about me versus the story I know is “true.”