How You Receive Feedback Will Shape Your Future. Really.

Why is it so hard to give or receive feedback?

It’s your brain. At the simplest level, we all agree that feedback is crucial. It improves and develops our performance and skills, aligns capabilities and expectations, and guides promotion and pay. It makes us a better version of ourselves.

 Our brain’s primary role is to keep us alive. It has a built-in evolutionary defense mechanism to prioritize fear over reward. Unfortunately, the brain can’t easily distinguish the difference between real and imagined pain - or fear – either the physical kind or the emotional kind. As a result, the brain keeps us safe by protecting us from the negatives. 

Feedback falls into the category of a potentially harmful event, hence we instinctively fear it. We have a fear of being flawed, a fear of failing, a fear of the discovery that we are not as smart as people think we are, or a fear of being judged. Fill-in your fear-blank here. 

The receiver of feedback has more control than she/he thinks.

Instinctively, one would think that the giver has the upper hand in the power balance of the feedback process. That is true about the content, the setting, and to some extent, the tone of the conversation. In a boss-subordinate relationship, the receiver can face the consequences of not acting on the feedback. However, the receiver has more power than she or he thinks, including the ultimate decision of whether the feedback is “let in” or “kept out,” as well as what to do with it.

How to prepare yourself to hear feedback offered to you?

Below are practical steps you can use to prepare yourself to receive potentially difficult feedback. The suggestions are centered around minimizing your brain’s fear state and maximizing both what you hear and understand from the feedback process. I have used them in my own, sometimes difficult feedback situations, both from the giving and the receiving side.

1. Prepare yourself (if at all possible) before the feedback conversation begins.

This suggestion might sound trivial, but I see it all the time. People don’t prepare. All of us have received feedback in the past, so we can probably guess how we typically react. For scheduled high stake events, such as your yearly performance evaluation where promotions, raises, and stock rewards are on the line, do some scenario planning. How will you react and respond if you don’t get what you expect? If you prepare scenarios in advance, you can be calmer, more controlled, and in a better listening state.

2. Put yourself in the right frame of mind.

This is another seemingly obvious suggestion, but it is equally as easy to forget. You can assume that you and your brain are uncertain about the outcome of the feedback session. With this level of uncertainty, you will unconsciously put your brain in a fear state.

You can work on reframing your brain’s fear state by putting yourself in a learning mindset. Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, calls this a “growth mindset.” in her groundbreaking work. This will help to reframe the conversation from, “it will criticize me,” to “this is a learning and growth opportunity, and I can become a better version of myself as a result.” Try to be curious and assume positive intent.

If you have a regular mindfulness or meditation practice, consider a short session before receiving feedback. It will slow down your mind and make you more receptive to listening.

If you want an extra body language boost, invest 20 minutes in watching Amy Cuddy’s Top 10 most-watched TED Talks about power poses. It’s powerful and amazingly simple.

3. Focus on listening and understanding. Resist the urge to react.

This suggestion will be by far the hardest. It requires the practice of self-awareness and self-management. Your main goal is to stay as controlled as you can and to resist becoming defensive and combative. Remember, your brain is programmed to fight or flight as the sympathetic nervous system is activated when you feel under attack.

The urge to react and respond immediately will be tremendous. Here is where self-awareness and self-management come into play.

If you feel yourself falling into the defensiveness trap, try the following:

-         Slow yourself down by breathing deeply in and out. Three times is a good baseline, and keep doing it for as long as needed. Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which has almost the exact opposite effect of the sympathetic one. It relaxes the body and inhibits or slows many high energy functions, like fight or flight.

-         Try and reframe the process as a learning experience. Stay away from emotions and keep the conversation light and productive. Think growth mindset.

4. Understand fully what is being said - both its background and impact.  

The process of asking for clarification is in your control. You own the understanding part of the dialogue. The giver owes you maximum clarity. Ask as many clarifying questions as needed (within reason) until you really “hear and understand it.” Don’t assume you know, and do not try and read between the lines. Strive for certainty.

Use non-threatening, open-ended questions to receive more information. Start those questions with “what” and “how,” not “why.”

Asking for clarification is particularly important if the feedback is delivered with ambiguous and vague labels, such as “you should build more executive gravitas,” or “be more assertive, creative, or strategic.” Put yourself in the driver’s seat by asking clarifying questions. For example, “How does that look?” “How is this best demonstrated?” “Who is a great role model for XXX, and how?” Let the giver unpack this more. You can also use a technique from improv. Ask “Yes, and …?” That is a non-threatening way to get more information. You can ask “Yes and ….” many times. Don’t use “Yes, but …,” which signals disagreement. 

Consider enlisting the giver to help you on your feedback journey. For example, you might ask, “How can you help me to achieve XXX?”

Feedback is all information, not a judgment of who you are. Try to understand the root of the feedback and put yourself in the shoes of the giver. What is their point-of-view, and what do they want you to do with the feedback? Your truth is not the only truth. Sometimes feedback doesn’t feel true to us because it shines light on a personal blind spot.

If you get too many different feedback suggestions at once, ask the giver to prioritize. That way, you can focus on the most impactful ones. Also, look for big themes in the feedback. Don’t get entangled in or hung up on a word or a comment or a perceived negative fact. Up-level the conversation to the bigger picture the giver wants to convey.

5. Ask for a break.

If the feedback gets under your skin and your fight/flight instincts have completely taken over, it’s OK to ask for a bathroom or a water break. If your brain is too aroused for you to hear what is being said, you can use something along the lines of “I can sense that my amygdala is being highjacked, can we take a five-minute bathroom and water break before we continue the conversation.” Use the time-out to center yourself again by breathing or doing a quick mindfulness practice. Your objective is to calm yourself so that you are able to hear what is being said.

6. Summarize and play it back.

Once you have asked all of your clarifying questions and you “get it,” take a moment to summarize and to play it back to the giver. That way, you make sure that both of you are indeed on the same page.

7. Thank the giver for the feedback.

Sometimes this is a hard one, especially if you disagree or don’t like the feedback. However, a “thank you” shows that you heard the feedback and it signals that you received it. It doesn’t mean that you agree with the feedback or that you are planning to take it in.

8. Process the feedback and decide what to do with it.

After the conversation, you are again in more control. It is your opportunity to reflect upon and evaluate what you’ve heard. You can always learn from it and consider what parts to work on, what parts to disregard, and what parts require a deeper understanding in subsequent observations.

Two things you can do to make yourself more feedback-resilient.

 1. Practice brings mastery. Be proactive and regularly ask for feedback.

Getting feedback once in a blue moon makes it harder for your brain to process. Like everything else in life, the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more you get out of it. Repetition calms your mind.

If you proactively ask for feedback, you are a bit more in control. You can fine-tune and be more specific about which topics you want to receive feedback on.

2. Establish a trusted feedback network.

Ask colleagues and friends that you trust, those that see you in action, to provide you with honest and unfiltered feedback. Select people who have the guts to tell you the truth, not just those who want to please you. When they give you feedback, you need to receive it in the spirit in which it was given, “to make you a better version of yourself.” This is not the time to argue.

If the above has sparked interest in diving deeper into the topic of Feedback, I can highly recommend the work done by Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone. Thanks for the feedback. The science and art of receiving feedback well. Even when it is off-base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you are not in the mood. 

In summary:

Intellectually, we know that we need feedback to become a better version of ourselves. However, negative brain bias makes giving and receiving feedback more difficult than we want it to be. As the receiver, you have more control than you think, and with good preparation, you can maximize your hearing and learning experiences. 

Let us know your thoughts and experiences as you apply or have used some of the suggestions. 

About the author: Robby Swinnen is a former Fortune 50 Senior Executive with 30 years of experience leading global lines of business. He currently dedicates his passion for coaching and mentoring senior executives across a broad range of industries. He is a faculty member at the Hudson Institute of Coaching and is a strategic advisor to boards.