The Art of Feedback: Balancing Recommendation and Criticism
It’s easy to assume that pointing out a mistake is feedback, and to some extent it is, but it’s like telling your partner it’s raining outside and not holding out an umbrella. Feedback is instructive language that positively influences behavior. It has a purported intrinsic benefit: it provides knowledge on how to improve what we do and how we do it. It helps us grow and become better.
This post was originally published on the Help Scout blog .
This meaning can be easily lost due to the belligerent language masquerading as educational leadership. Tough love is a tone that parties understand, not a concept that is automatically accepted just because you work together. Tough love is deserved, not given.
The field of giving and receiving feedback is built on many pillars: relationships, understanding of personalities, timing, environment, tone and language, workplace culture, and so on. Feedback is the last thing to remember.
A friend of mine experienced this, and his example unfortunately describes many jobs.
When he was hired, his boss said that the culture in the workplace is like “family.” This word carries a lot of expectations and assumptions, good or bad, but of course, when you are hired, you will stick with the good. My friend was wrong and his boss gave him feedback. When a friend of mine was retelling this story, it sounded not like feedback – it sounded like criticism and contempt .
It was obvious why: the error had been identified, but there were no instructions on how to fix it or how to avoid repeating it. In the weeks that followed, there was no feedback on my friend’s success. The boss complained to other workers. There was an exchange of words in which there was no guidance, much less kindness.
He asked me, “How is your job?” While I am not claiming that we are exemplars of this art, our team is committed to taking this personal and emotional interaction and making it conducive to learning and collaborative development. It is a process that sharpens over time as relationships grow stronger and individuals are better understood. This is the only reason I am getting better.
Feedback heart
Brené Brown, researcher, author, and TED speaker, said in her science fiction book Daring Greatly :
Research has clearly shown that vulnerability is at the heart of the feedback process. This is true whether we give, receive, or request feedback. And the vulnerability is not going anywhere, even if we are trained and experienced in working with suggestions and getting feedback. However, experience gives us the advantage that we know that we can survive the effects of uncertainty and uncertainty and that the risk is worth it.
[…] Again, there is no doubt that feedback can be one of the most difficult areas to negotiate in our lives. However, we must remember that winning is not about getting good feedback, not giving up difficult feedback, or not giving up feedback. Instead, he removes his armor, appears, and engages in combat.
It’s so simple, but also so difficult. Sometimes people just click their mouse and the feedback process is effortless. There is an understanding between the parties that everything that is said is not meant to be scolded or harshly condemned, but in order to improve and learn together .
When this understanding is wrong, organizations should strive to fill this gap. The potential slips right out of your fingers.
How to remove armor, appear and join the battle?
When I first joined Help Scout, Greg and I contacted by phone and resolved the issue immediately. As writers and marketers, we both understood that feedback is the lifeblood for developing my voice, getting to know the product, and understanding my audience.
By recognizing the barriers to such communication, as well as recognizing the art of candor , he created a set of expectations that prepared me for the inevitable feedback loop.
This is reassuring not only as a colleague but also as a human being. Now I know what to expect. Trust arises. With this expectation comes the confidence that I will be ready to win. Sometimes this understanding awakens a sincere conversation; subsequent actions keep him alive.
Once vulnerability is understood and easily put into practice, feedback can become a positive and life-changing aspect of personal growth. But the fact that errors were found does not mean that we can set sail.
To complete the cycle, don’t just give feedback; scenario of the next critical moves.
How to record critical movements
Chip and Dan Heath, authors of The Switch: How to Make a Difference When Change Is Hard , recount a 2000 study in which moviegoers were given a free bucket of popcorn and a drink. However, the popcorn was deliberately stale – so stale that it creaked. Some have large buckets, others medium.
They wanted to see if people with larger buckets would inevitably eat more than people with medium buckets. It turns out that people with large buckets ate 53 percent more, even though the popcorn tasted terrible.
Encouraging a person to quit snacking is our default response and is seen as feedback – by definition, but not deep in itself. To teach someone to use a smaller container, one has to take awareness (overeating) and mix it with a critical step (using smaller buckets). In the case of popcorn, it’s not an attitude issue or a lack of knowledge – it’s a design issue. As the authors said:
Change begins at the level of individual decisions and behavior, but this is difficult to start with because this is where friction arises. Inertia and decision paralysis will force people to do things the same way. To start moving in a new direction, you need to provide crystal clear guidance. This is why the script is important – you have to think about the specific behavior that you would like to see in a difficult moment … You cannot write down every move – it is like trying to predict the seventeenth move in a chess game. Only the critical steps are important.
When I get feedback from Greg, we spot bugs and patterns in my previous article, and then he writes down the critical steps: “Write your thesis before starting the article; outline conclusions; avoid triple adjectives; stop using the word “essentially”. “
I write this on stickers. Every time I start a new draft, I revisit the important steps and start over. Over time, these critical steps become my new default feature, improving my efforts and breaking bad habits.
The last piece of this feedback puzzle is to simply analyze the progress.
Review and adapt accordingly
As the French essayist Montaigne once said: “It is not enough to list experiences; they must be weighed and sorted; they must be digested and distilled so that they can lead to the reasoning and conclusions they contain. “
This last piece completes the puzzle: Talk with your manager (or anyone else) about how you implemented this feedback, how important steps helped, and how these behavioral adjustments contributed to improvement and change.
The art of feedback is an ongoing process that improves and adapts to circumstances. If there is one type of communication that fundamentally changes and improves the organization and also fosters beneficial connections between the team, it is the exchange of words that builds potential. To withstand this, you must be ready to remove your armor, show up, engage in combat, and not only identify mistakes, but also give clear instructions on what to do next.
Think about it: is there anything more encouraging than knowing that there are people out there who want to help you become better? It all starts with how we interact with each other . Words can hit and bounce off people, or they can be sown like a seed. Even a raised eyebrow or the wrong tone can dampen the urge to learn, arousing anxiety and fear of failure.
By thinking about how the feedback process works in your organization, you can reinvent the lost but essential art that is the foundation of sustainable change.
When Contempt Disguises As Feedback, No One Wins | Scout help