To give better feedback, you must fully understand the agony of receiving it

Smart people love to talk about how to give feedback. But not many talk about how to receive it.

No matter how deeply we can embrace concepts such as radical transparency, listening "your presentation did not reach the mark" or, what is worse, it is never a comfortable moment.

As animals wired for self-defense, our instinctive reaction is to reject hard comments,Feedback.   And then we could go through something that resembles the five stages of pain.   Anger ("He's crazy, my presentation shook!") Transforms into denial ("Who is he to talk, his emails are incomprehensible?") And then maybe some negotiation ("Oh, God, he's right, please do not leave me fired tomorrow ") followed by some wallowing if not real depression.


The fifth and final stage, of course, is acceptance, and there is a reason why it takes us so long to get there.

Professor at Harvard Law School, Sheila Heen, co-leader of the Harvard Negotiation Project and co-founder of Triad Consulting Group, has spent much of her career understanding why accepting comments,Feedback is so difficult, and how to internalize them. with more self-awareness and objectivity.

Quartz At  Work spoke with Heen to find out why it is so difficult to receive comments,Feedback, if everyone has the capacity to do so and how each one of us can improve. The transcript has been slightly edited for its length and clarity.

Quartz   at   work: Feedback comes in many forms.   What is your definition of this and how can we recognize when it is being given to us?

Sheila Heen: The word feedback makes people think immediately about performance evaluations, and those are included, of course, but when we talk about feedback, we refer to all the information available about you every day.   Much of that information is informal rather than   formal,   it is not spoken, instead of direct.   Examples of indirect feedback and tacit feedback may be facial expressions ;   it can be a look that someone gives you in a meeting;   It can be when you hear through the grapevine that someone was upset by the way you handled things;   It may be the fact that I did not respond to an email.

Part of what is difficult about feedback is finding out whether something is feedback or not.   Feedback is your relationship with the world and the relationship of the world with   you,   It's the way it's impacting other people, for better or for worse.   So everything is around you, the question is if you are paying attention.

Generally, when we think about feedback at work or in relationships, we assume that the one giving the feedback is in charge.   However, in Thanks for the feedback, you argue that it is the receiver that really controls the feedback conversation and the success of the feedback.   Why?

Receiving feedback is a different leadership skill.   Learning this took about 10 years by teaching people how to give feedback, and noticing that this instruction was not really solving the problem: people were still having difficulties in their feedback conversations. For us, that was a moment of slapping. We realized that in any exchange of comments,Feedback, it is really the receiver who is in charge, because they are the ones who decide what to listen and how to understand it.   

Quartz At Work spoke with Heen to find out why it is so difficult to receive comments,Feedback, if everyone has the ability to do so and how each of us can improve. The transcript has been slightly edited for its length and clarity.     

Quartz   at   work: Feedback comes in many forms. What is your definition of this and how can we recognize when it is being given to us? 

Sheila Heen: The word feedback makes people think immediately about performance evaluations, and those are included, of course, but when we talk about feedback, we refer to all the information available about you every day. Much of that information is informal rather than formal, not spoken, rather than direct. Examples of indirect feedback and tacit feedback may be facial expressions; it can be a look that someone gives you in a meeting; It can be when you hear through the grapevine that someone was upset by the way you handled things; It may be the fact that I did not respond to an email.             

Part of what is difficult about feedback is finding out whether something is feedback or not. Feedback is your relationship to the world and the world's relationship to you, is the way it is impacting other people, for better or for worse. So everything is around you, the question is if you are paying attention.         

Generally, when we think about feedback at work or in relationships, we assume that the one giving the feedback is in charge. However, in Thanks for the feedback, you argue that it is the receiver that really controls the feedback conversation and the success of the feedback. Why?   

Receiving feedback is a different leadership skill. Learning this took about 10 years by teaching people how to give feedback, and noticing that this instruction was not really solving the problem: people were still having difficulties in their feedback conversations. For us, that was a moment of slapping. We realized that in any exchange of comments,Feedback, it is really the receiver who is in charge, because they are the ones who decide what to listen and how to understand it.     

This is partly due to these two basic human needs , which begin with crossed purposes: on the one hand, we really want to learn and grow. That is a great happiness research, and it is very satisfying. But we also want to be accepted, respected and loved as we are now. So, when people want us to change it somehow, it suggests that the way I am now is not excellent or not great. Understanding those two things really helped me understand my conflicting relationship with feedback and why it does not always feel like a gift.             

As human beings we are hardwired to protect ourselves. Faced with feedback, we are really good at improper detection, because if I can find out what's wrong with the feedback when it arrives, then I can put it aside, relax and continue with my life. So we are analyzing if feedback is a good idea, if the donor understands the situation, if I trust them, if they know what they are talking about. We judge when, how and where the comments,Feedback were given, and whether that was inappropriate or appropriate, useful or useless. We are looking for what is wrong because that frees us from trouble. If I can find what is wrong with the comments,Feedback, I can reject it. 

The problem is that there is always something wrong with each comment. And while part of the feedback could be 90% wrong, that last 10% might be just what I need to start thinking. 

People think they have a lot of unique reasons why they do not get a good response. But after analyzing the feedback responses around the world, he realized that we all experienced the same three basic feedback triggers.What are they?   

First, there are triggers of the truth, which is when we ask, is this advice good or bad? It is really evaluating the feedback itself to determine its accuracy, fairness, balance, etc. 

As a receiver, we can ask questions that are looking back, to understand where this feedback comes from, or look forward to understanding where the feedback is going. We need to say, "Something happened that prompted you to tell me this, do you help me understand what happened, looking back in time?" And looking forward, we need to ask questions like: "Suppose I agree that I should Be more proactive and take your advice, what would you do differently? Questions are a little easier to hear or talk about if we feel particularly defensive.

Then there are the triggers of relationship, which have everything to do with who gave us the answer: Do I like them? Do I trust them? Do I want to be like them? Because all the feedback lives in that relationship between the donor and the receiver. The triggers of relationships , which include where and when someone gave me their opinion, is probably the most common reaction we hear.     

What is so interesting about the triggers of relationships is that, in the first place, somehow we should not care who the source is: it is good advice or bad advice, or something valuable to us or not. is. But it is really tempting to say: "I will only receive comments,Feedback that I trust, of people who have earned it, or of people who really know what they are talking about." If that is my narrow band of acceptable comment donors, I am missing a lot of potential learning.

And then there are the triggers of identity, which have to do with the questions: "What is the story that I tell myself about who I am?" And "Does this feedback challenge that story?" This is related to the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck on and growth mindset. Does this feedback tell me that I am a good person or a bad person? Competent or incompetent? If we have a fixed mentality, all the comments,Feedback are a verdict on whether we are up to the task or not, so the comments,Feedback are usually very threatening. On the contrary, people with a growth mindset see the comments,Feedback as information that helps me know what I should work on next.   

If we decide, we can consciously cultivate a growth mindset. One of the most powerful ways to do this is to work hard to listen to ambiguous comments,Feedback such as coaching instead of evaluation. It is possible that when someone says "talk at meetings", they really want to say: "I hope you know you have no charisma and you never will." they are simply trying to train us to improve. We can choose to listen to the comments,Feedback in any way.

If you know you have a fixed mentality, then you simply have to fight against the predetermined one. It should ask: "Is this feedback intended as guidance or evaluation and, in any case, is it likely to be more useful to me?" In most causal situations, I mean that it is not related to a performance review; It is understood as coaching. 

It is important to note that being in a growth mindset does not mean that feedback is painful, sometimes it is because, you know, I certainly thought I was more advanced in this ability, and it is quite annoying to realize that I still have to work that out .

So, do we all have to accept the idea that we have blind spots?

It's okay. If you need a really obvious example of your blind spots, think of your face: the face of the only person in the meeting who can not see is yours. There is all kinds of information that other people have about us (tone of voice, verbal habits) that we can not see ourselves. So we really need other people to see us accurately and to better understand the impact we have on other people.     

Can we trust the people we work with to give us an accurate picture?

The idea of support mirrors and honest mirrors is extremely useful when thinking about this. When we receive a particularly disturbing comment, we call someone or meet someone after work, from   who   we are sure that we like and vent, right? We say: "Can you believe what happened to me? It's worse in this than me! It's totally unfair, he does not understand what I do! "We make all the mistakes in the detection of the comments,Feedback we have received, and we ask our friends to be" support mirrors ", and join us in that mistake, to stain over a glass of wine (or two).   

The support mirrors show you how you look better, with a flattering light and good hair. And implicitly, when our friends bother us, we know that what they need from us is to join them. We listen and we tell them why they are great and wonderful, and we say: "Do not listen to those comments,Feedback". 

Support mirrors are important, especially when the comments,Feedback we receive seem like a complete story of who we are. Our friends can really help us to dismantle this distortion, help us see that we are great and say: "You are doing 99 things right now, it's amazing, have a bit of perspective, right now I understand that this is just one thing." This distortion management helps us see the comments,Feedback in real size again.     

But the danger is that we stop there. And then we do not ask or invite our friends to be honest as mirrors when we are ready for it. An honest mirror shows you how you look now, when perhaps you are not at your best. And change the question "What's wrong with the feedback?" A "Well, now help me see, is there anything that could be correct about this feedback?" Our friends will not be honest mirrors unless we invite them even if they do, sometimes we still feel betrayed, like which side are you on, anyway?     

But our friends, including close professional colleagues, are really in a good place to help us see what we can learn when it is difficult to see ourselves.

Those two questions, what is wrong with the feedback and if there is something right in it, should always live together.

You present the concept of "change tracking" as one of the main problems we experience when we receive comments,Feedback. What is that? 

Switchtracking is one of the most common problems in feedback conversations. It happens when the person offering a comment receives a response from the recipient, and the answer is actually a different topic. It is common that the two people do not realize that they are talking beyond the other, because they continue in their own conversations: the one giving the feedback is still in their conversation and the feedback receiver is still talking about something different.   

When we were working on this chapter, I was picking up my son, who was in high school at the time, after the practice. Periodically I was in a bad mood and he got in the car and said: "You're late." My immediate reaction was: "Do not talk to me like that." From my point of view, that is The subject of the conversation: the most important thing to talk about is how you are talking to your mother, and if you realize that you had to leave something in what you were going to look for . But that is not your subject. His theme is that I was late, and that's true, and you know he has been waiting in the cold, and has tasks to do. And this lasted about a month before I suddenly realized that I was changing tracks in him.

In feedback conversations, that's super common, but we do not realize what's happening, and this often has to do with the triggers of the relationship: I'm changing the subject to how the comments,Feedback are giving me, to when They are giving them to me, instead of what we are talking about, what they are trying to tell me. Once you know about changing tracks, you start to see it everywhere. It's amazing. 

Is there any power dynamics involved in the monitoring of switches? For example, even if I notice that my boss changes our conversation, it may be embarrassing for him to explicitly point it out. 

In power relations, what is often obtained is silent switching tracking. So the subordinate is answering in his head, and the boss simply does not know that they are in a totally different conversation. So the boss thinks: "I said my piece, they listened to it, we went ahead", but the subordinate thinks: "You said your piece, it was stupid, I did not hear it, then we went ahead".   

And this comes to our relationship systems, in which we each think that the other person is the problem. Then, yes, the conversation of tracking switches may sound awkward, but it is not necessary, as long as you can "point" the conversation. 

And what do you mean by signage?

Once you notice that a conversation is changing, you can point by saying, for example, "Okay, it seems we have at least two things to talk about, one is what you are saying, which is that I missed this deadline or that I made a comment that seemed to undermine me, that 's important, and the second thing we should also talk about is how we prepare for that meeting, because I think it contributed to the problem and I felt frustrated about that. "Just mention the two topics.       

With my son, I can say: "One thing we should definitely talk about is that I'm late, and this is not the first time, and it affects you. And another thing we have to talk about is how    me   you're talking, and if you're appreciating the hoops that I'm jumping for, even to get here. " 

If you get into a fight, spoken or not, about who will win, it will not work. The other person will instinctively resist, because his subject is the most important from his point of view. But if you can say, look, there are two issues, one from each of us, and we probably need to talk about both, the other person will think, okay, as long as my problem is there, I'm fine. It is useful to note the separate problems because, otherwise, we perceive ourselves more and more separated, having two separate conversations.     

Are there certain people in an organization that are more difficult to hear comments,Feedback on, such as your boss, a teammate or an apprentice?

One of the pitfalls we fall into is that we believe that the feedback we need must come from a specific person, and if that person is terrible at that, or does not have time, or just does not know what to do every day, then you feel caught. But you are not stuck at all; You have people around you who are actually better placed in many cases to offer suggestions and training. 

The people you are working with shoulder to shoulder are very aware of what they would like you to do differently. And your direct reports are also. Sometimes I tell leaders that if you do not know what you should be working as a leader, everyone else knows; They have a secret list that conveys the things they want you to change, the things that make it harder to do their job. But you have to ask them. Otherwise, they will not tell you because they do not want to jeopardize your relationship with you.         


Part of the reason why people are so good at receiving hard comments,Feedback is genetic: it is the luck of the draw, in the same way that something like height or eye color is.

The good news for those of us with not very good cabling is that a part (around 40%) of all this is under our control, and is related in particular to the way we tell the story of the comments,Feedback: what meaning we give that

Imagine that we received these comments,Feedback from our supervisor: "You forgot to respond to the client yesterday. Can you be sure to contact them first thing today? This particular client expects an unusually high level of responsiveness. "From that, we tell this story:" My supervisor has it for me. You know I'll be back to the client this morning, but he just wants to make sure he knows he's not happy with me. Try to undermine my confidence in every opportunity. " So, the whole story has been added, it's a guess and it could have elements of truth or it could be totally wrong. But for the receiver it just feels like "the truth".         

The better we understand our own tendencies, as well as the tendencies of those with whom we live and work, the better we can interact well with them in terms of giving and receiving comments,Feedback that are not only honest, but also useful.

What is a practical and good advice for those of us who are not naturally blessed with the ability to receive feedback?

Sometimes people come to us and say, "I'm going to have this conversation really hard and my goal is that I do not want to cry," or shout, or whatever the emotional behavior is. And over the years of training people on things like that, the advice that seems to work is actually a bit counterintuitive, which is not to contain the feelings, or to fasten them more strongly, but rather to name them calmly. Simply verbalize, "   is   really disappointing to hear "or" that's not the way I wanted to be perceived ", actually helps you calm down a bit physiologically.

It is totally counterintuitive, but in reality there is a great distinction between describing or naming emotions and being emotional. And we often become emotional, our emotions seep into our volume, tone and behavior, because we are not naming our emotions. 

And what happens when, despite receiving the comments,Feedback well, you simply do not agree with what the person says?

There are three different types of feedback limits that we can establish in these situations. The most innocuous thing is to take time to digest, then go back and tell the author: "I thought a lot about the comments,Feedback you gave me last week, and I wanted to close the cycle to let you know why 'I will not follow your advice.' That is the approach that we usually omit, out of frustration or fear that it gives us. But   Not closing the cycle makes the donor feel as if you do not care enough to follow their advice. Being transparent about why you are not following your comments,Feedback can save your relationship in the future.

The second type of feedback limit allows the donor to know that their feedback is unacceptable. For example: "I am aware that you do not like my spouse, but it is not useful to detail all the ways you do not like him every time we see each other". I will not agree, and that's fine, but he clarifies that he needs the donor to keep his comments,Feedback and perspectives, because it's damaging their relationship. 

And the third type of limit is saying: "If you can not keep your points of view for yourself, then I can not stay in this relationship in this way," no matter what that means. It may mean that we will not stay with you when we go on vacation or that you should work with a different boss. 

It is also important that the recipients know that they do not always have to be open to as much feedback as anyone wants, because if it is undermining their self-confidence or their ability to function in the world they are in, it is not useful. Sometimes we have relationships in which it is just a constant flood of little advice or useful criticism, and in those cases it is important to defend yourself to keep your relationship healthy, or choose to get out of it. Sometimes we have to say: "More coaching at this time is not going to help me, I just need to work on what I have from the comments,Feedback I have received so far" or "They are evaluating me every minute, just give me a little space to digest what I'm working on and then I'll be ready for the next round. "

That is really a healthy response, to feel and say that.

In a professional relationship, is there an optimal time to share how you respond to comments,Feedback or what kind of comments,Feedback do you prefer?

Ideally, feedback is a continuous conversation. It is a relationship, not a meeting, and all too often it is treated as a meeting. What I mean by that is, all too often, the "feedback" part of our relationship is when we have that performance review that is included in the calendar at the end of the year. But if I discover in December that you wish you had done something different last February, then I'm frustrated that you did not tell me before.     

This regularity is particularly important for building trust. Often, we need to know that our colleagues appreciate the things we do every day, and we must listen to them so that we can be receptive to coaching.

I tend to encourage people and leaders in this way: when you have a new team member or a new relationship, you just spent five minutes saying, "Hey, as we work together, we will have ideas and suggestions for others. I just want you to know that it's useful for me to get comments,Feedback in this way, or through this channel. "Explain, for example," If you put a comment in an email, that's totally fine with me "or" It's harder to receive comments,Feedback via email, just pick up the phone and tell me. "You do not have to do it," Here's everything to know about me. "Just share a couple of requests or suggestions for   what   Know that you want feedback, and have an idea of how to deliver it.

People think that all this "feedback stuff" has to take a lot of time, when in the best working relationships, where people really learn and grow and support each other, the feedback is only integrated into their workflow a few minutes to the time .

This approach makes the concept of feedback much less intimidating, as it is only one element of a complex and healthy relationship.

Exactly. We teach the concept of "one thing". Very often, we ask general questions like "do you have any comments,Feedback for me", to which people will say "I do not know" or "you are great"! Instead, we should say: "Hey, what is a thing", then insert any context that makes sense. For example, "What is one thing that I am doing, or am not doing, that is hindering our productivity?" The exchange takes four to five minutes, but prepares your relationship for continuous and honest communication that will ensure you and your colleagues they are collaborating and improving continuously.     

Ultimately, being a good receiver does not mean agreeing or disagreeing with feedback, whether they take it or not. It means that you actively work to better understand what the donor gives you and what they want you to change. You have to ignore the fact that you do not like how they talk, or do not want to be like them, and realize that, anyway, you can still have something to learn.