The Secret Benefits of Feedback

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“This work is garbage and you’re an idiot!”

“This work is amazing and you’re a wonderful person!”

Have you ever had feedback that sounded like this?

Clients come to you because they want help with a problem. And they won’t be shy about telling you how they feel – especially if they don’t like what they see.

That’s why you need the skills to handle both positive and negative feedback.

Don’t take it personally

I’m always tempted to take feedback personally.

After all, I made the work that’s being reviewed. I want to be seen as a competent and useful person.

But feedback is not a reflection on how I am as a person.

I can make a mistake and still be a good, kind, hard-working person.

I can do amazing work and be a terrible co-worker, husband, and father.

Sure, I’m always bummed when I don’t reach my own expectations. But if I turn that into, “I’m not a good person. I’m a failure. I should quit,” then I’ve based my self-worth on pixels on a screen.

Feedback is great

Feedback brings uncertainty.

We don’t know what the client is going to say. The key is to see feedback as free learning. It’s not a way to feel good about yourself (when the feedback is positive). It’s not marking you as a failure (when the feedback is negative).

Feedback is free learning.

• Positive feedback shows you what to keep doing and improve on.
• Negative feedback shows you what to stop doing and improve on.

Either way, you’re learning.

And it’s important to keep feedback in context. No one (not you, the client, your manager, or their pet guinea pig) has a perfect view of every situation.

Things might have gone well due to events or circumstances completely outside of your control. Things might have gone wrong due to events you can’t see and couldn’t have known.

You also don’t control the client’s temperament.

They might see the most amazing work that you’ve poured your heart and soul into and say, “Ok, thanks. It’s fine.” ?Some clients avoid confrontation. Some clients aren’t warm and fuzzy.

That’s why it’s important to take feedback objectively.

How to take feedback

Staying objective during feedback is a challenge for everyone. Here’s how to accept feedback:

• Listen. Pay attention to what is said and attempt to fully understand the feedback in context. Don’t interrupt.
• Clarify. Ask questions about anything unclear or vague. “It’s not good,” might not be enough detail to fully understand the feedback. Even, “It’s great,” may lead you to assumptions that aren’t valid.
• Reflect. It’s easy to want to defend yourself (in the case of negative feedback) or stop listening (in the case of positive feedback). Take time to let the emotions subside and then think through the next steps with a clear head.
• Plan. Feedback is useless if you don’t plan for what to do with it. Positive and negative feedback both point you in a direction to go. But the only way you’ll make progress is by setting up a plan with actionable goals.
• Review. Feedback is not a one-and-done event. Use the feedback cycle to stay on track and continuously improve as you go.

When things get heated

Some clients are terrible at giving feedback.

You might get hit with personal attacks and emotional outbursts. It happens. Clients have a lot invested in their business or position and could be feeling vulnerable. Or they could just be bad at feedback.

Either way, you need tools to stay calm and weather the storm in yourself.

When you’re attacked, you’ll probably have one of three responses hard-wired in your brain:

• Fight – You want to verbally hit back and defend yourself, or even go on the attack and question the other person’s skill, understanding, or intelligence. (Not great)
• Flight – You want to run away in avoidance and not engage with the client to solve the problem. (Not great)
• Freeze – You turtle up in your shell and don’t know what to say. (Not great)

These are normal responses when we act out instinctively.

What you need is a way to fight through those instincts and get back to your thinking brain. Your thinking brain can come up with solutions and ways to get to the root problem without melting down.

Here’s what to do:

• Regulate your emotions. That doesn’t mean being “calm.” It means choosing your emotions and the level they’re allowed to reach. You’re in charge of your emotions. You can choose the right kind and amount of emotion for the situation.
• Avoid hitting back. Personal attacks hurt. You don’t need to return them, though. Note, this doesn’t mean letting them go unchallenged. I might ignore a personal attack when I can see that a client is simply frustrated. In that case I might need to be the bigger person and let it slide. But if a client is being malicious or excessive, I might need to say, “Hey, that’s an uncalled-for personal attack. Let’s stick to the issue here.”
• Look for solutions, not blame. Pointing fingers might feel good in the moment, but it doesn’t usually solve the problem. Do your best to stay laser-focused on the problem, the solution, and how you can work on it together.

Move forward

Feedback can be scary sometimes. But feedback can be a great way to move forward if you’ll let it.

• Learn from it.
• Don’t overthink it.
• Move forward.

I won’t say that feedback will become comfortable. But it can become a useful tool to grow you into a more awesome person.

Don’t shy away from it. Embrace it and see where it takes you.