If You Don’t Have Something Nice To Say…
How to Give and Receive Feedback
If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Parents around the world have shared this advice with their children in hopes of cultivating kindness. Yet an important way for organizations and individuals to improve is through feedback — which makes many people uncomfortable and isn’t always nice in the way we usually think of that word.
The inherent tension in giving and receiving feedback has resulted in often contradictory advice about best practice approaches. For example, a common method is the “Sandwich Approach” where negative feedback is sandwiched between positive feedback. However in the Harvard Business Review, Roger Schwarz explains that this method can actually undermine your feedback because it lacks transparency and as he states, “It is a unilaterally controlling strategy — in other words, a strategy that revolves around you influencing others, but not being influenced by them in return.”
He instead recommends a mutual learning approach where feedback plays a role in advancing strategies and learning together.
In “Thanks For the Feedback,” authors Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen point out that many management books focus attention on how to give feedback in ways that are constructive and encouraging, but what is actually more important is how to receive feedback.
We’re swimming in feedback — managers have “suggestions” for work, our devices connect us to infinite feedback relating to our personal lives, and strangers have lots of advice on how to parent.
While we all want feedback to help us learn and grow, most of us have sensitive egos and want to be accepted just as we are right now. The tension between these two desires can prevent us from receiving feedback in the healthiest way.
If feedback is an important element of fostering healthy relationships and professional development, how can we overcome the dread or instinct to dismiss suggestions offered to us?
One simple way to do this is to be alert to your own emotional triggers. Mentally redirect conversations to try to understand what the other person means in their feedback and how it can help you learn. While this requires a degree of self awareness, it also opens us up to perspectives and insights that can be a valuable part of our development.
Another strategy is to only ask for one thing to work on. It will be concrete and specific, and therefore easier to integrate.
Check out the video below for more information on getting better at receiving feedback:
As we examined last week, there is a power to asking good questions. Here are a few questions to help you reflect:
- Have emotional triggers ever prevented you from receiving feedback?
- What is the most useful feedback you have received at work?
- When has giving feedback backfired on you? (and why)
#AlwaysLearning
Roy
“The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions.”
— Abdu’l-Baha
Our Friday Learning Notes series is designed to share insights from Omidyar Network’s journey to become a best-in-class learning organization. Grab a cup of coffee and start your own Friday morning learning journey! *warning: side effects of regular reading may include improved mood, upswing in dinner party conversation, and/or increased desire to cultivate learning for social impact
