Nutshell: How to receive feedback

Just as we need to learn how to give good feedback, we also need to learn how to engage in feedback conversations when we’re the recipient.

We know that feedback is a Good Thing at work. We’re working hard to make it an important part of our routine communications. We’re getting better at giving it in ways that would make even radical candour’s Kim Scott happy.  We’ve even tried asking for feedback from our team members.

So why is it that we’ve just come out of our latest one-to-one with our boss positively fuming about some comments she made about the way we ran last week’s town hall meeting?

Surely what she said was unfair. And why did she have to raise it now? She knows how busy I am and how much pressure I’m under. I might as well just give up. I’m just not appreciated.

Sound familiar?

Most of us have been on the receiving end of feedback at work that, however well-intentioned or delivered (hardly a given), leaves us feeling demotivated, dejected or just plain indignant.

Of course, not all feedback we receive at work will be negative. But being open to feedback is especially difficult when someone is telling us that we’ve not performed as well as we might or that we need to change.

It’s hard to recognise and manage the resistance we might feel at having our competence or behaviours questioned. We might feel especially sensitive depending on who the feedback is coming from. We know that feedback is about learning, but it’s hard to move past our instinctive reactions: “That’s wrong.” “I’m not like that.” “How dare she?”

When we think about it, it makes sense that one of the reasons leaders might want to ask for feedback is to understand how it feels to receive it. Seeing feedback in the round – whether we’re asking for it, giving it or receiving it – makes us better able to understand and use it effectively.

And remember: whenever we’re involved in a feedback conversation, someone will be on the receiving end. 

Why receiving feedback can be hard

In their book Thanks for the Feedback, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen give a very good reason why receiving feedback can be hard.

It’s because it “sits at the intersection of two needs – our drive to learn and our longing for acceptance”. We may want to learn but we also want to be loved, accepted and respected just as we are.

Even in the most compassionately candid environments, that’s a tricky intersection to navigate. But navigate it we must.

Just as we need to learn how to give good feedback, we also need to learn how to engage in feedback conversations when we’re the recipient.

That means managing our emotional triggers, taking part fully in feedback conversations, being curious about other perspectives and making thoughtful choices about how we can use and learn from the information we receive.

Stone and Heen go as far as to say that “nothing affects the learning culture of an organisation more than the skill with which its executive team receives feedback”.

And, when we’re giving feedback, we also need to consider how the receiver might feel.

Feedback and uncertainty

Feedback conversations can be hard because they involve uncertainty: it’s impossible for either party to know or entirely control how the conversation will play out.

What might be welcomed by one of our colleagues will seem like a crushing blow to another. The best we can do is to be as prepared as possible and think about how the other person might react.

For some feedback conversations, scripting the conversation in advance can help us focus on outcomes and what we absolutely must say, as can scenario planning for possible responses. We also need to listen and respond as the conversation progresses, making the conversation a proper two-way dialogue and adapting as we gather new information.

Thinking about how our receiver might feel is not an excuse to avoid saying what we need to say, but it will help us anticipate and plan.

We know, for example, that we really should talk to Tom about the aggressive and unpleasant way he speaks to one of his colleagues. Knowing Tom, though, he’s not likely to accept that there’s a problem and is quite capable of trying to tough it out. We might be worried that he’ll be angry and it’s hard to know how we might get past his stonewalling to bring him on board with the change we want to see.

In this case – as with our own reaction to feedback from our boss - it’s helpful to consider the feedback model based on the acronym SARAH.

SARAH

When we think about how feedback might land with us or other people, SARAH can help us to:

• manage how we might react.

• consider the stages others might go through when faced with the need to up their game or change their behaviours.

The model tracks the emotional responses people often feel when they receive feedback that might be hard to hear or is initially resisted by the recipient.

If we can anticipate these stages, then we’ll be better placed to support or encourage the other person to move through them to arrive at the outcomes we want from the feedback conversation.

S is for shock

Most people are surprised or shocked to hear that their work is not as good as it should be. Once we’ve delivered the message, we need to give them time to absorb and process what we’ve said.

A is for anger

Once the initial surprise or shock has worn off, people might feel upset or angry that they are being criticised.

R is for resistance

It’s hard to believe something negative about ourselves, so we have protective mechanisms that spring into action when we feel defensive. We reject the idea that we’re doing something wrong. We come up with reasons why it’s not our fault.

It’s common for people to get stuck at this stage. That’s when we need to provide clear facts and information to support what we’re saying and reiterate our goal of working together to improve the situation.

A is for acceptance

After it has sunk in that there is truly an issue, and one that can and should be corrected, most people move past rejection and into acceptance. This is where we can start to plan how to move forward.

H is for help

Once people reach the acceptance phase, it’s much easier to accept or even ask for help. That’s when we can all start to learn from the feedback.

SARAH in action

Armed with this knowledge, we might start to think differently about that conversation with our boss.

If we’re honest, once we’ve calmed down, we might accept there’s at least a grain of truth in what she said, no matter how unpalatable it might be. Faced with the facts, we’re able to move past “resistance” and start to think about how we can use the information we’ve been given to do better next time.

Without the feedback we received we might not have been able to see that there was an issue in the first place. Having our experience reflected through someone else’s point of view helps us to learn from it.

With Tom, we’ll need to be persistent to encourage him to accept the problem. That means getting our story straight and being clear about the impact of his behaviour on our colleague and the team as a whole. This is a time to be clear and candid, really thinking about how we can move him along the SARAH curve.

It may be, of course, that our conversation uncovers all sorts of reasons why Tom might be behaving in that way. Or he might be genuinely surprised that he’s coming across in the way he is, and more than prepared to change. Either way, the SARAH stages will help to us to anticipate and prepare for whatever comes our way.

“Criticism”, said Winston Churchill, “may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things.”

That may be overstating the average feedback conversation at work, but it’s an interesting way to reframe how we might feel about being on the receiving end of feedback we might not want to hear.

When we find ourselves in that position, there are two clear options: we can either fight and rail against it or we can listen carefully and then decide what to do with the information we’ve been given.

If we can learn to receive even critical feedback calmly and with learning front of mind, we’ll be much better placed to help others to do the same.

And with SARAH in our toolkit, that should prove to be a whole lot easier.

Test your understanding

• Outline the two conflicting needs that, according to Stone and Heen, make receiving feedback hard.

• Identify what the second 'A' in the SARAH model stands for.

What does it mean for you?

• When you next have to give someone some feedback they might not want to hear, consider how the SARAH stages can help you to plan for your conversation. Did they help? How?