Giving and receiving feedback: the art to self-improvement

Borrowed from the sphere of physics and automation, in the language of communication the term feedback indicates a positive or negative response given to a person as a result of their actions or behaviors, with the general purpose of influencing their future behavior. Feedback is also considered a “gift”, a sort of present given to the recipient with the intention of stimulating their improvement and, by osmosis, that of the group of which they form part.

Why is feedback important? To understand why it’s important, we can use a concept created in 1955 by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, known as Johari’s window. The model breaks each individual down into four distinct parts. The first three are: the open area, made up of all the information we know about ourselves and which is also known by others; the hidden area, containing facts and information known only to us, which we are not willing to make known to others; and the unknown area, containing our unconscious, inaccessible to anyone.

There is, however, a fourth part, the blind area, which collects all that information about ourselves that we ignore, but which is visible to others. Feedback is the interpersonal communication mechanism that allows us to discover the blind area, helping us in self-awareness and therefore in self-improvement. The blind area not only hides potentially negative character traits that we need to work on, but also skills and abilities that we may not be able to recognize on our own. In social groups of any size, it is therefore important to develop a culture of both positive and negative feedback.

Misplaced feedback, of whichever type, can create discomfort and distrust. A disconnect is created between the reality perceived by the person and the image that others have, returning a different image from the one the recipient has of themselves.

There are various techniques and strategies for learning how to give and receive feedback.

An essential prerequisite is to be genuinely interested in establishing a relationship of trust and dialog with colleagues and co-workers, bearing in mind that this dialog serves first and foremost to improve ourselves. Both parties need to trust one another, otherwise the very premise of feedback - being a help, a gift - is lost.

To give good feedback, we need to focus on timing and specificity, avoiding generic phrases as much as possible. In fact, criticizing in a non-specific way can lead to misunderstandings, while the use of concrete examples facilitates self-criticism. We need to try to focus on behavior and facts, not on the person. Criticizing the person and not the behavior is one of the mechanisms that can lead to a closed attitude on the part of the recipient. Another important thing to consider is timing. If the feedback refers to events that happened too long ago, it may not be considered to have the same value, because in the meantime the facts have lost clarity.

Knowing how to receive feedback is just as important. It is essential first of all to put others in a position to give us feedback, avoiding reacting aggressively to criticism and maintaining a certain degree of flexibility in our beliefs. If you receive generic negative feedback, especially if it is expressed as a form of criticism, it is a good idea to first try not to minimize or react by counterattacking, but to break down the useful message by taking the person who gave the feedback away from generic ground through more specific questions. The same attitude is useful if we receive generic feedback: we can help the person giving the feedback by asking open-ended questions, aiming for specific and unambiguous feedback requests.