Find the Coaching in Criticism. Things to try when feedback doesn't quite land

Feedback can find us in some really confusing ways. And, however well intentioned, it can trigger all kinds of feelings too — many unhelpful when it comes to building a growth mindset and maintaining our resilience reserves.

Training teams (and managers in particular) to give feedback more effectively is a start. But it won't change much if we, as the receivers, aren't able to properly process and absorb what's been said. And that's where the thinking shared here comes in.

Badly framed observations, surprisingly harsh performance reviews or 'funny' comments that may not even be intended as feedback can trigger us in different ways.

😡 In their highly recommended book, Thanks for the Feedback, Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone refer to three in particular -

Perhaps reading this, you're reflecting that you often do defend yourself on the facts, or that you don't like to receive feedback from people with less experience than yourself? Or perhaps you reject it in the moment, but over time consider things more deeply and come to realise that there could have been something in what they shared after all?

Either way, when we're triggered we often shut down, get defensive and stop learning. Not good for our growth, relationships and resilience.

The challenge isn’t to work out how to ignore these triggers. It’s to become more self-aware that they're happening in the background of our brains, and to learn how to extract beneficial learning from feedback, however it has come our way.

Here's a talkative technique to try.

Participants share honest and striking examples of terribly clumsy feedback they've received in our workshops on the topic, while often acknowledging that they think it was coming from a 'good place'. But, understandably a complex combination of thoughts and confusion has been triggered.

Do any of these three examples feel familiar?

Devoid of any context, indication of what specifically they've noticed, or any expressed concern for what might be behind the behaviour being shared, it's easy to see how someone could mentally check out of the conversation at that point.

The challenge, as difficult as it can feel in the moment, is to get into a curious state of mind and use probing questions to extract meaningful 'data' from the person who is not as skilled as you in these moments (of course you can point them towards our Owning Feedback workshop in due course). You're going to need to dig into a very general observation and try and discover the specifics of what prompted it.

Here's some of the language and suggestions of such curious questions, that come up in workshop discussion; ones that you could experiment with the next time you feel some confusing, triggering and energy zapping feedback coming your way.

Curious questions should lead into clarifying conversations. And with more data, and less subjective interpretation, we can decide to what degree we want to take specific feedback on board. More often than not there's some useful learning in there, and these kinds of open exchanges can hugely enrich relationships and change the way our managers and colleagues share feedback with us in the future.

When we recognise and name our triggers, resist knee-jerk reactions and dig into where feedback is coming from, we can create mutually valuable learning and make an informed decision on what we choose to change.

Join a 90 minute experiential session on Owning Feedback to dig into more ideas and practices like this one. You'll find coming dates here.

And take a look at this 20 minute eCourse on Owning Feedback too.