80% Encouragement + 20% Feedback = 100% Constructive Feedback

How often do you think that your wife/ husband is not listening to you even if you are (or so you think) providing them constructive feedback about improving in some important aspect of life? You must have also faced similar situations with your kids, colleagues and your subordinates at work. 

It got me thinking while I was reading the book “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks. It says that to enjoy abundance in life, one has to remove criticism from life, which is one of the major causes of the “upper limit problem” (which limits the growth in life). The author asks to list down the acts of criticism that we do in our daily life and try to eliminate those. I would like to add that even good feedback seems like criticism if it is not mixed up with the right amount of encouragement and appreciation. I took up the exercise and started thinking deeply about our actions and how are we doing here. 

Here are some examples from my life that can probably help you in opening up a few layers and realise the underlying issue behind such an attitude. 

Scene 1 - I went to the kitchen to fill the water bottle but the utensils were filled up in the sink. There was no way that I could fill the bottle without removing the utensils. I looked at Arun who was listening to some news channel. An annoyance swept through my mind that why didn’t he keep the utensils in the dishwasher after having his lunch. On the other hand, I saw the kitchen which was cleaned by him. It provided some comfort. However, I could not stop myself to make a point to him that he should have put the utensils the right way. Personally, at that point, I thought that I was giving him feedback. However, when I thought about it later, I could understand that this was actually a reaction to the fact that Arun was watching a news channel at that time. And this is something I do not like him to do and criticise him often about.

Scene 2 - We were checking the videos of our evening workout before posting on Instagram. I told Arun that now my posture has improved while doing flutter kicks and I can hold legs at a much lower level (which is comparatively tough). He swiftly refuted it and said, “That's not important”. That was a moment, where I was looking for some appreciation. However, he was unmindful of that and passed his remarks in a way that he felt was genuine. 

I would have let this comment go but as I am on a quest of eliminating criticism from our life, I took this as an opportunity to discuss a bit about his reaction.

I told him that how he never appreciates or encourages me in daily life. On the other hand, he is very prompt in giving feedback several times a day. (Frankly speaking, most of them are very genuine points but I still struggle to take them positively)

We further discussed on different aspects related to criticism, constructive feedback and encouragement and how all of it will varies based on the relationship, environment, timings etc. 

We also discussed the concept of 80:10:10 of self-improvement, which says that a person should invest 80% of the time on things one is good at and 10% each on things which he/she is at a moderate, bad level. If one has to invest more time on the things one is good at for self-development, it is important that the person realises those things. And the best source of that realization is the appreciation and encouragement from our close-ones.

Both of us are rethinking about our interactions and how we resist or ignore to encourage each other on a daily basis. And in missing to do that, how we miss the chance of being a stimulus in each other’s progress. 

And, this is quite applicable to other relationships as well (Employer-Employee, Parents - Kids, Colleagues at our workplace, and so on)

To sum it up, I would say that feedback is only good and works as constructive when mixed with big amounts of appreciation and encouragement. A 80:20 rule seems to fit well here. We should look at providing encouragement and appreciation 80% of the time. Only then the 20% feedback will be effective as it would be understood and taken in the right manner.

PS -The examples above are obviously not flaring ones as we are a pretty well functioning family. However, it is always good to talk over even the small issues as these do greatly hamper our improvement progress in subtle ways.