The Art of RECEIVING Constructive Feedback

I was talking with my coworker Jocelyn about feedback, especially about how important it is to receive any constructive feedback from people who might be your customer, internally or otherwise. So, I'm going to riff on our discussion.

Let's say someone comes to you and says, "I don't like the way things are working between our two departments" (or between the two of you, or between them as a customer and you as the company). What do we do next?

What's the Intent of the Feedback?

Let's start with the easy stuff: is this person looking to talk about how you go about doing what you do, or are they communicating as a person who is in some way impacted by your work or process?

One challenge with feedback (especially constructive or potentially negative) is that it often comes from the point of view of the person having the problem. "I can't stand your blanket two week turnaround. It really messes up my ability to turn things around faster."

When we hear something like that, it's easy to feel defensive first, and not try to receive the information. It's jumbled. If someone delivers feedback that triggers our emotions, for instance, it's pretty unlikely that we'll do something useful with the feedback, right?

Let's make it worse: "I hate your blanket two week turnaround. We have to change that somehow!"

You might be tempted to say no. Worse, you'll say no and come up with a long (and reasonable - to you) justification as to why not. Humans are amazingly adept at explaining why not.

The INTENT of that feedback, though, is to say "hey, my process is not in alignment with yours. Can you help me get it there?"

How to Receive the Feedback in the Moment

Let's assume the person giving you feedback intends for it to be constructive and/or solve a challenge they're having with something you're doing or delivering. I've learned that the very first response ALWAYS to receiving feedback is to say "Thank you." Even if you WANT to reply with a different kind of two word phrase ending with "you," say thank you. This person has provided feedback.

Next, it's always best to clarify before you accept/reject/or recommend anything based on the feedback. Reflect it back. They say, "I really need you to change your blanket two week deadline," so you might say back, "I want to be clear. You'd be able to get things done faster if you didn't have to factor in a blanket two week deadline for everything?"

This is so important, the "reading it back." It does two things at once: It confirms you understood the intent of the feedback. It also allows the person to hear their idea from your point of view, which sometimes leads to an adjustment.

"Well, I mean, it's normally fine, but sometimes, I have something come in that's an exception, and it's hard for me to turn around a rush job if you have an unyielding two week minimum on turning around a project."

See how this is an opportunity? You MIGHT decide, "Okay, let's come up with an exception policy, but let's also agree we'll only have 2 per month tops."

Third, your opportunity when receiving feedback is to acknowledge that the person bringing it to you (if well-intentioned) is giving you a chance to come up with a way to improve an interaction that's obviously important enough to both parties to get something done.

Once you get past the emotional stuff, like worrying they think you're dumb, or whatever other sentiments you roll into this feedback that aren't expressly stated, but that we fill in from past experiences and traumas, then we have an opportunity to accomplish the output requested of the feedback.

The goal here, the third one, is to find a way to say yes. Don't immediately say no because it's not your plan. Look deeper. See if there's a reason and way you should be doing things differently that address the feedback.

Let's recap:

• Say "thank you" to any feedback you receive, no matter what.
• Reflect back what you heard.
• Suggest a way you MIGHT accomplish the task.

Your Customer (Internal or Otherwise) is the Reason for What You Do

You might have heard this sour joke before: "This job would be awesome, if it weren't for the customers." It makes sense. But it's pretty important to remember why we're doing what we do.

That's more difficult when you feel like your team is doing the best job and another team just doesn't know what they're doing. Ohhhhh trust me. I hear those stories all the time. "Nobody over there has any clue." In fact, I hear it so often, that I have no idea how my company keeps making more and more revenue and earning more and more customers. If everyone stinks at their job, shouldn't we be in shambles?

Okay, there's some truth. Sometimes, other people's poor planning turns into your emergency. (Or that's what they want to see happen.) It's fair to push back in those instances. But lots of times, if someone has constructive feedback to give you, it's because they haven't come up with a way to fix the interaction that's causing them an issue.

With this in mind, let's revisit someone coming to you with constructive feedback. Maybe your boss says, "I don't know how else to say it, but you really come off as disorganized and unprepared in meetings. It's not a good look."

It's easy to take offense to that. Sure feels like a criticism, right? But if your boss is saying it, maybe it's because they are counting on you to deliver a level of service that you're not meeting. Your boss is your customer in this case. Or your work efforts are impacting the larger success, and you are being asked to step it up.

(I should say explicitly that Jocelyn has nothing to do with my examples - though I mentioned she and I were talking and this is why I wrote this. If YOU just read this and thought, "Hey, I think Chris means me," I probably don't, if you report to Jocelyn, unless you're disorganized, and then I do.)

Feedback (when constructive) is your customer saying, "I need us to do this a different way."

This should be treasure to you. Gold. Because if you DO satisfy their request, they'll be more pleased, and happy customers are a pretty good ingredient for success.

Follow Up - This One is the MOST Important

I don't know why, but one of the biggest areas where we fall down after receiving constructive feedback is that we never expressly check back with the person who had something to say. Once you've had the conversation, had time to make a change (if that's what you plan to do), have operated under the change once or twice, it's important to reach back to the person who made the constructive statement and see what they think.

If we're all lucky, they say, "Oh yes. This works so much better. Thanks. I'm so happy we had that conversation."

If we're not, but maybe a little lucky, they'll say, "It's better. Maybe can we talk about this..." or something. That gives us another chance to reset and handle things.

In either case, we followed up. Sometimes, we hear someone, we take into consideration what they say, we do some work, but we forget to report back that we've made a change. This means they don't know that you adapted to fit their needs.

It's always great to finish a feedback experience with follow up.

Your Mileage WILL Vary

It's okay. I started the post saying that we're not always sure why someone has constructive feedback. It could be they're a poopyface trying to be mean. Or they think if they say something mean to you, it makes them look better. And so on.

But it's best if we presume someone giving you this feedback has positive intentions. Give some of these ideas a chance. See if you might find a better way through those bumpy moments, and decide whether you're getting more done with this new point of view.

I'd love to hear back.

Chris...

P.S. What'd I miss?