I have a confession. I’m terrified of feedback.
I spend way too much time trying to avoid ever upsetting someone in order to never be on the receiving end of feedback. It is a minimally effective strategy that requires exhaustive levels of energy and the sacrifice of authentic intimacy. If that weren’t bad enough, this strategy is steeped in a fixed mindset.
Yet, I choose it time and time again. No doubt, I have received feedback and survived. Despite my experiential evidence, I have an irrational fear that feedback WILL destroy me. I fear someone will deliver the kind of feedback that will eviscerate my sense of self, cancel all present and future relationships, and throw into question my understanding of reality.
So yeah, I’m terrified of feedback. And I’m not alone.
According to Thanks for the Feedback by my heroes Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, Professors of Education at Harvard Graduate School, receiving feedback can provoke three major sources of defensiveness: truth triggers, relationship triggers, and identity triggers.
When feedback can throw these basic elements of our self, relationships, and understanding into question, it is no wonder that many people are terrified of feedback.
If a strategy of radical avoidance isn’t desirable, what other choices do I have?
Stone and Heen point out that receiving feedback doesn’t mean you always accept the feedback. Instead, receiving feedback is about engaging in the conversation skillfully and with an open mind.
The question remains, why be open to feedback? Feedback is an opportunity to learn about ourselves, from a perspective we can not see. Being receptive to feedback is a way to deepen connection, love, and respect in relationships. And believing that one negative piece of feedback will END me, is a clear sign of fixed mindset thinking. A growth mindset allows me to be open to engaging with feedback without the threat of irreparable self damage.
Stone and Heen posit three things to accept about yourself:
1. You will make mistakes
2. You have complex intentions
3. You have contributed to the problem
I can do this without putting my entire identity on the line. I can stop worrying that feedback will end a relationship (although it might, but that is the topic of another blog). Instead, I can take feedback as a signal that someone wants to invest in the relationship. It is a way to strengthen and improve the quality of a relationship.
Thankfully, they also offer several ways to navigate feedback triggers.
One important strategy the book mentions is understanding your feedback patterns. I created a tool for you to use individually or in teams to investigate and gain clarity on your feedback patterns and choose one way to improve your feedback receptivity.