How Giving & Receiving Effective Feedback Improves You

Written By Chris Sosnowski

Background 

Today, we give and receive feedback differently than we did a generation ago. We use a lot of anonymous or semi-anonymous tech tools to give feedback (ratings?) when it used to be that you just told someone how you felt. Many (especially software) businesses now fixate on their “NPS,” or net promoter score (“How likely am I to recommend such and such…”).  Yes, many of these new feedback tools are great and can be effective ways to grow. Then…there’s social media (cue dramatic sound clip), which has brought a whole new, different complex set of tools that encourage us to rate, like, repost, cross-post, hide, or unfriend companies and people as a way to provide feedback. Whether new tech, or old-school conversations, when it comes to feedback, I agree with the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes who wrote ~3,000 years ago, that “…there is nothing new under the sun.” When we give or receive feedback, it is still both hard and incredibly good to grow from it and as such, we are wise to get better at both, as our ability to do so will serve to help us be better employees, spouses, children, parents – better people. If you are reading this far and thinking…”Yes! I know someone who should really read this…it means that someone is (also) you.”

Context 

Here at Waterly, we have about 15-20 employees (depending on how you count our contract help). When a software company like us grows that fast, there are always new teammates joining, new contractors helping, new products to launch, new deadlines, as well as new responsibilities almost every month and consequently, there are new people around here doing new things all the time. As we scale in our business, it is crucial that everyone at every level learns to communicate well, deliver feedback, and listen to it well, if we are to stay healthy as we grow. This article serves to provide some practical thoughts designed to make giving and receiving feedback easier and more effective. 

“...it is crucial that everyone at every level learns to communicate well, deliver feedback, and listen to it well, if we are to stay healthy as we grow. ”

It’s My Fault 

I’m married (though that’s technically only 49.9% my fault 😉). To be clear, I’ve been happily married since 1998 to my best friend, Mandy. I’m also happily employed and very satisfied with my career. Whether you believe I’m just lucky, talented, blessed, or somewhere in between, the fact is that I’ve been very satisfied with my career for most of my working life and I have successfully coached dozens of professionals towards career satisfaction as well. Whether you are married or not, happily employed or not, if you have ever been in any type of a committed relationship (work or personal), you know that it takes work to become and stay satisfied, and one of the ways we “work” at our relationships is to have discussions at work and home about whose fault something is.

After 30+ years of working at being happily committed to one woman and almost as long in one job, I can firmly say that arguing about whose fault something was in a situation is near useless. Except for when it is clearly one party’s responsibility (which does happen, and yes, it is usually me in those cases), this conversation is almost always just a back and forth, profit-less “discussion” that doesn’t end in helping either party much.

Instead, I have found that it is far more useful for us to talk about a certain situation, a specific behavior, and how each person’s behavior contributed to feelings. In those rare cases where someone is truly mostly at fault, it is usually an extraordinarily mature and strong person that says, “I’m sorry. That situation was my fault; I should have handled it differently and I didn’t. What can I do better next time?” For the rest of the more typical situations that merit feedback, discussing how both parties contributed to the situation with some good conversational tools is a much better approach. 

“Arguing about whose fault something was in a situation is near useless. ”

Feedback is really hard on our brains, and can physiologically shut down the parts that learn and problem solve while it figures out how to cope with what’s being said. So, if you want to help solve a problem (and not just vent at someone), you’ll follow these five tips to get the most out of the energy you spend giving and receiving feedback.

  1. Stick to the situation

  2. Stick to just your opinion

  3. Avoid criticizing the person’s character

  4. Keep it simple (short and to the point)

  5. Avoid the “Sandwich”

Feedback Tools and Pitfalls to Avoid 

While many of the takeaways and pitfalls below are based on my own life experience (aka, failure to communicate well), many of the suggestions I’ve listed below have been much more thoroughly discussed in the very practical and short book, “Feedback that Works. How to Build and Deliver Your Message,” put out by the Center for Creative Leadership, as well as other reference I’ve listed at the end of this article. The following are some of my hardest but best lessons learned on effectively delivering and receiving feedback.  

  • Stick to the situation at hand. Feedback is best delivered unemotionally, but soon after the specific situation that triggered it. As tempting as it is, avoid talking about the other times you’ve observed or experienced the same behavior. This also means avoiding words like “always” and “never” or “all the time,” as these can be “triggers” where you will likely cause the recipient to mentally disengage as they think of all the times that your critique didn’t apply, in order to refute your original assertion. 

  • Stick with your thoughts. The best feedback is received well and will bring the change of behavior that you desire. When you tell someone that you are “not the only one that thinks this way,” you will almost certainly trigger a different “emotional shield” that will stop them from listening well. You don’t want to have to deal with “shields up at 99%” if you want to get change to happen, so don’t invoke what other people have or haven’t said. Additionally, I consider it particularly unkind and potentially a sign of insecurity to bring in other “anonymous” people when you are talking one on one with someone. If someone really needs help with something they aren’t listening to you about, physically bring another person with you that cares for them as well, and let each person speak for themself.

  • Avoid criticism of their whole person. When you use phrases like “you really need to” or “I’ve been seeing this for a long time,” or anything that causes the recipient to reflect on their overall character, whether you intend to or not, you are invoking a moral judgement on that person’s life. Yes, and that’s a hard pill for even the wisest among us to swallow, even if it’s true. You may think I’m being picky, but when someone tells us that we “need to change” our brains spend a lot of (defensive) energy thinking about “…so what if I don’t?” Ultimatums on character are certain conversation killers and may be better left to a professional to unpack with you. Instead, focus on that single situation, just your thoughts, and talk about their behavior to avoid putting their whole person on trial.  Little changes in behavior can bring about character change, but it takes time.   

  • Keep it Simple. When it comes to feedback, work to make it short but specific. Don’t wait until you have a pile of things to criticize then open the firehose of feedback. Our brains really can overload when someone criticizes us, even a little bit, so keeping it simple means: One - try to stick to one (or two maybe) pieces of feedback, two - make it only a few minutes conversation, and three - don’t rapid fire feedback day after day.    

  • Avoid the Sandwich. I’m not a huge fan of the “positive sandwich” philosophy that says we need to surround our constructive feedback with something nice before and after it, as I think it can come off as patronizing and disingenuous at the time. The real issue is…let’s get better at delivering and receiving feedback quickly and effectively, remember to give praise people regularly, as well as tell people you appreciate them.  

Conclusions 

Hopefully, you have a healthy relationship with the giver/receiver before you try and give feedback. Delivering feedback in a young or largely one-way relationship is not the best way to build a team, whether at home or at work. If you are not sure if you have a trusting relationship where you can deliver feedback, consider asking for and modeling receiving feedback first. I suggest a question like, “what can I do (differently) this week to support you best?” Ask this question for a few weeks, discuss, and make sure you do what is discussed. If you can’t receive this feedback yourself (this applies whether you are the boss or the one being coached), then maybe ask someone you trust to help you be able to ask it. Once you can truly deliver (which can be assessed with the follow up question “…how have I done this month in supporting you?”), you should be ready to better deliver additional feedback, as well as continue to receive it yourself.

As you put this to work, remember you can only change you. Move from wishing everyone else around you would be better and find ways to change yourself; you’ll be surprised by the results. And if, after reading all this, you are still convinced that this article was written for your coworkers and not for you, please consider sharing your thoughts with a trusted close friend, pastor, or counselor, because it can be a sign that you are struggling with lack of self-awareness to the point that it has embittered you and is blocking your ability to grow.

Whether you’re in the water industry looking for a good software solution to simplify and manager your data, or happened upon this article in desperation for a healthier future, thanks for reading.

Feedback Resources the Author Recommends 

Chris Sosnowski