Crafting Transformational Feedback Series, Part 2: Differentiating Between Observations, Interpretations, & Judgments

10 min read with practical, structured advice included

By Aaron Tabacco, PhD, RN

“My current employer uses the 360-type system, which I loathe, mostly because they only use it once a year.  All year...  crickets, and then BAM! I'm told that I am unapproachable, inflexible, and resistant to change (in a nutshell). They never tell me anything more specific because the feedback system is anonymous.So, this year, I had a private meeting with our manager. I told her that while I want to honor any feelings my co-workers have about working with me, I think it's folly to just say "You need to fix this.  What are you going to do?"  I told her that it feels horrible to get ZERO feedback from anybody all year, and then feel totally  raked over the coals every Spring. 

Signed, 

360DegreeBurn”

From what you may have read from my in the Crafting Transformational Feedback Series thus far, you can probably gather that I'd have a ton of things to say about this almost ubiquitous type of “performance evaluation” system and the feedback that is being generated and given to this professional. This is actually a prime example of everything NOT to do for evaluation and feedback. From my previous Introduction and Part 1 articles, you can probably see that my reader, “360Burn”, has received ambiguous, abstract, inhumane, delayed, and decontextualized feedback. And from the tenor of voice of the larger email from which this quote was taken, it is clear that the effect for this hardworking and dedicated professional is emotional pain, stress, frustration, and confusion. Sound like a human workplace nightmare? It does to me, too. Unfortunately, this is far too common the approach and outcome of established evaluation and feedback practices which are sorely lacking in rigorous social science examination and humane, ethical proofing.

But this week, I’d like to tackle some very specific and disturbing elements as seen in 360Burn’s feedback when told she was “unapproachable, inflexible, and resistant to change.” This is not uncommon feedback given to others in the workplace. But what does any of this really mean? Humans are indelibly linguistic beings. Clear and compassionate communication about work – especially within shared workplaces seeking to produce some kind of common product, service, or discovery – is vital in achieving the intended outcomes. If communication among workers is ineffective and harmful, the entire venture is ultimately on the line. How is 360Burn, or any of us for that matter, supposed to respond to this kind of feedback? Is there any shared understanding of these three words at all? How can 360Burn craft any kind of meaningful response without knowing exactly what is meant here? 

The core issue here is that the feedback given is unclear because it doesn’t distinguish between what is an observation of a specific behavior, what is an interpretation of a behavior, and what is a moral or personal judgment of another human being. Why are these distinctions important? Consider this:

I have to say; I think we all come by this problem naturally. As a neurodevelopmental scientist and clinician, this confusion of observation, interpretation, and judgment is really an artifact of our own socially-developing brain over time. As children, we naturally approach all things with wonder. This is why children are fearless and relentless in asking “why” and “how” and “what” questions to take in their observations. As we grow and gain more language and experience, we start to move into higher levels of abstract thinking. Our brain naturally moves into interpretation mode. Judgments stem from a place of self-protection. This is not intentional or malicious. It is simply a neurobiological and behavioral fact. But the downside here is that we stop “seeing” the world in favor of interpreting it. This is a root cause of many problems when we are in need of giving feedback to others.

When I was a professor of nursing, a regular part of my workload was to teach students in experiential, clinically-based learning groups in a wonderfully rich 8:1 ratio. One of the very first small group seminars I would lead for them, was focused on this very problem of seeing vs interpreting. I began the exercise by putting four photos of different facial expressions on the board, giving students just two minutes to write down what they “see” in each picture, similar to the example below:

When the time was up, I’d survey them and write down key words from their responses on the white board into three rough, header-less columns. No matter how many times I’d done this over my 11 years as an educator, the pattern of responses was always the same. About 75% of the students shared things like, “I see she is angry” or “I can tell how sad he is” or “I can see she’s afraid”. Another 15% of students regularly responded with statements like, “I don’t want to meet him in a dark alley…he’s violent” or “She’s the kind of person who will spill all her problems on your shoulders.” Then, in each group, there was at least one person (about 10%) of students who would say, “I see furrowed eyebrows; she’s isn’t making eye contact. Her hands are tightly held in her lap and she’s leaning forward in her seat” or “His facial muscles are really tense, and his lips are pursed tightly, like his forehead. I see his arms are folded across his chest firmly.”

Because I’ve repeated this lesson (and thus, experiment) hundreds of times with similar results, I’ve seen first-hand how our brain works to interpret, and even to judge, what we see instead of actually seeing it. My nursing students and I would use this exercise as a way for me to tell them that, in fact, you can’t “see” anger. You can’t “see” hopelessness. You can’t “see” happiness. And you most certainly can’t “see” moral defects of character or ability. We can only interpret them; judge them. What we can see, are the discrete, specific, uninterpreted behaviors or displays that led us to believe what we are thinking. And we can then capture those with non-judgmental words and use those as pathways of inquiry. 

How many times has someone come up to you in the workplace and said something like, “Are you okay today? You look so unhappy?” ...And you’re totally caught off guard because you were feeling something very different, such as intense curiosity leading you to focus deeply upon a task. Since our brains are always speed-processing social information, we are most often quick to interpret and judge without stepping back to see things more honestly and freely. This is one of the many reasons that becoming a reflective practitioner in the workplace is so helpful. Reflective people step back, set aside their own biases and emotional responses, question, and approach with wonder. 

The positive results that come from learning to distinguish between these three very different things are many. When we can present our co-workers with feedback that is observation-focused, our language is much clearer, and we open dialogue of discovery. Think about how different the student nurse “feedback” was when you compare “He’s angry and violent” with “His facial muscles are really tense, creating tight lips; arms locked across his chest.” Now it may well be that the person IS angry. But there is always the possibility that there is something different and there is certainly something more going on. Remember the two things I’ve shared about behavior: All behavior is communication; and the behavior we see is like an iceberg, with far more going on below the observables.

Let’s return to 360Burn’s feedback that she was “unapproachable, inflexible, and resistant to change.” Can you now categorize each of these offered words more precisely? One can probably argue a bit about the interpretation vs judgment categories of each one given this limited example context, but it should now be very clear that none of these are actual observations. A couple of weeks ago, I offered the example of a learner (my language-frame for co-workers in feedback contexts) who was told he was “rude and had a pushy communication style” in the workplace. Not really clear or actionable, and most definitely judgmental. Using reflection and exercises of differentiation led to the more transformative feedback, “When you talk with co-workers in meetings you often interrupt them as they speak, and the effect of that is that it shuts down productive dialogue and idea sharing.” 

360Burn needs her supervisors and colleagues to do the work of stepping back from the interpretations and judgments to get to similarly clear, concrete, non-judgmental language if they want to see some kind of specific changes in the workplace. It is certainly worth noting that a truly enlightened supervisor here would remember that all behavior is communication and that what is under the surface may indicate much larger needs that need to be met for this person and the whole team or organization. Too much of evaluation and feedback is punitive and focused on control of individuals through shame instead of the more transformative work of discovery, change, growth, and enlightenment across the whole environment. If you think “enlightenment” doesn’t have a place in industry and business, then I’d say you better take a look at Brené Brown’s market presence which has exponentially grown. Her work has made its applicability in the business world abundantly clear. 

Parsing out observations from interpretations and judgments may already do wonders for increasing your ability to give actionable, useful feedback to others. But this is only one step in crafting Transformational Feedback. Part of the piece that is missing here is a related one: that of the visual brain and how our language, behaviors, and performance are all tied together. Next week, I will publish Part 3: Using the Science of Learning to Access Language. In this article, I will explain why finding your way to objective, observational language is so important as well as how to do it. This will draw a link between how our brains process information for learning and application with crafting Transformational Feedback and add yet another extremely useful tool to your kit. Thanks again for reading and if you like these articles, please share them widely! - A

**Do you have feedback stories you'd like to share like 360Burn did? Direct Message me or email me at: [email protected] You will ALWAYS be asked for permission to use your story and your identity will be kept anonymous.

(c) 2019 by Aaron Tabacco, PhD, RN