Take Hard Feedback Well
I want to share a short story of getting unexpected brutal feedback.
Many months ago, I taught a course on leadership for the first time with new slides.
My hosts sent the participants a survey, apparently not telling them that the results would be shared with me (I didn't know this either). Then, surprise, candid anonymous comments, written by students who thought they were only writing for the eyes of their administration, showed up in my inbox.
Some of the blunt feedback really stung. The surprise of getting feedback along with the unfiltered nature triggered feelings of pain, confusion, and resentment. I became defensive. Didn't these ingrates understand how much effort I had put into sharing valuable material with them?
The irony is, of course, that I teach people that feedback is a gift. That it is invaluable to our self-improvement. Now, I was given an unexpected chance to live up to my ideals.
Here's what I did:
I simply sat with the feedback. Feelings pass and I knew that with time the edge would come off my hurt ego.
I started looking for what was actionable in the feedback. What could I do to improve my teaching for this audience?
The third step, however, was the most critical…
…The next day I taught another lecture to this same group. I started that lecture by telling the students that I had received their feedback and that I acknowledged that it showed that I needed to improve. I thanked them for their candor and asked them to continue to give me honest feedback. Some of the feedback contained only criticism ("it was boring"), so I asked students to include suggestions of what changes might make things better for them ("it was boring, go faster").
Over the next several lectures I both improved my teaching and built trust with my audience. Several audience members volunteered to edit my slides and create exercises to improve the material.
By getting over my hurt ego and asking my critics to contribute to my improvement, the students got better classes and I improved at teaching.
If you want to level up in your career, you must learn to take feedback well AND make use of it.
Audience Insights
I have consolidated additional ideas worth considering from my LinkedIn audience, including:
Know that everything is impermanent and learn to sit with discomfort. The first step (simply sitting with the feedback) is the hardest, but learning to realize that your feelings are not permanent is a step change and allows you to respond rationally.
If you find yourself defensive about criticism, remember the acroynm RAIN:
Recognize that you feel upset.
Acknowledge that you feel defensive.
Introspect why do you have this sharp feeling (you may need to ask multiple times).
Non-Attachment and let go of being attached to “shoulds” (e.g. “I worked hard and thus I deserved to to be valued for my effort”).
A feedback sandwich (giving bad feedback sandwiched between two pieces of praise to make it easier to take) is not always effective. If you find your team not responding well to a feedback sandwich, try direct (not brutal) feedback, followed by time to process, and then a follow-up conversation.
Alexis Ohanian (cofounder of Reddit) shared “Remember to be human and build mechanisms to really connect with and understand the needs and recommendations of your customers and community, especially your top customers/early adopters (e.g. local meetups with Reddit moderators). Communities will be one of the most important features of a company. Do not sleep on communities!”
Takeaway: One of the first steps to being human and connecting with your community is displaying leadership by being vocally self-critical and proactively seeking candid feedback. This opens your community to provide more feedback (insights).
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Level Up is a free newsletter from retired Amazon Vice President Ethan Evans that breaks down how he succeeded and how you can get to the next level.