Why feedback can be so hard to hear and what you can do about it

Getting feedback is something we all know is good for us but why can it be so hard to hear? In this blog post, Head of Happiness, Stephanie Davies, shares her thoughts, as well as some actionable tips you can try to make feedback a happier experience for all.

In my career as a stand-up comedian, feedback was important. Without it, you carried on being pretty rubbish. The feedback was instant, hard and harsh. You either acted on it quickly or died (metaphorically, of course).  

Having this experience hardens you to feedback but everyone is different and feedback is something we need to learn to take as well as give. Most workplaces focus on teaching leaders how to give feedback. And many experts (myself included) have developed techniques to help with this - it’s even one of the key features of our Big Chats, Little Chats program.

But a recent experience got me thinking. Do we need to help people understand how to take feedback and recognise their responsibility in taking information on board? And will this help with how feedback is given and our state of wellbeing, happiness and engagement at work? 

Research into feedback

While research into giving feedback has been around since the early 20th century, the question of how we receive it has been less well-studied. 

Whilst doing a bit of research on this subject, I came across the idea that we have three reactions to feedback. The first is, “F*ck you.” The second is, “I suck.” And the third is, “Let’s make it better.” The idea isn’t researched but comes from an actor called Bradley Whitford.  I’m sure most of us can relate to it.

Depending on your personality, you may be more likely to stay at stage one, confident in your excellence and cursing the idiocy of your critics. Being unable to move on to stage three, which is the only productive stage, is the real problem. Why does this happen?

There are a number of factors that seem to have an impact:

1.    Overrating our ability

When we’re unskilled in a particular field, we’re more likely to overrate our ability in that area. Our incompetence makes it all the harder for us to understand how bad we are, a phenomenon now widely known as the Dunning-Kruger effect – from the 1999 study by David Dunning and Justin Kruger into receiving feedback. 

This feeds into what type of feedback one is expecting. It might be that the individual thinks they’re doing a great job and, as their perception is different, they’re potentially going to see this as negative and react accordingly.

2.    Adjusting comments to emotional states

We underestimate how bruising it is to hear that we’re not meeting expectations, even when the issues are minor.  And we can be surprised by critiques that do not line up with our sense of who we are.

If you believe you’re a great listener yet your 360-degree feedback comes back with complaints that you monopolise meetings, it may not feel like being known so much as feeling alien to yourself. And yet we all have blind spots. This is one reason why feedback can be so necessary.

3.    Your personal feelings

How you feel about the person giving the feedback, as well as the people and place you work in can contribute to how well you receive it.

4.    Your experience of feedback

Depending on how you were brought up and the feedback you received from parents or teachers impacts how you take feedback when you’re older. So does your ability to cut through the potential hurt and take the good points out. 

5.    Complexity of emotions

As well as the above, there is a complexity of emotions that should be considered too. A person’s self-worth, what else is going on for them, and any personal challenges or mental health challenges are all important factors. In psychology, they call these self-schemas.

Considering all these things, is it any wonder that feedback is one of the most challenging things to give and receive? So why don’t we help people understand how to take feedback on board? 

It seems common sense if we’re helping people understand how to give it. Supporting people in emotional intelligence and ways to understand how to take feedback will improve everyone’s experience at work.

Moving forward

There are some great books on feedback like Radical Candour by Kim Scott - whose fundamental belief is that there’s nothing kind in keeping quiet about a colleague’s weaknesses. She calls this ‘ruinous empathy.’ While aiming to achieve ‘radical candour’, you need to avoid ‘manipulative insincerity’ and ‘obnoxious aggression.’ The key to giving feedback, she writes, is to ‘care personally’ while ‘challenging directly.’ 

But this is all pointless if the person receiving the feedback has no awareness or desire to take it on board. To be clear, this is not about giving managers and leaders the go-ahead to be brutal in giving feedback either. As a former comedian, I don’t promote heckles at work… although there are some great ones I’d love to use from time to time. The point is we all have a responsibility to use our emotional superpowers, which help us to see that we’re all trying our best - and most of the time no offence is meant. 

Even leaders and managers get it wrong sometimes and when there are some behaviours or expectations that just aren’t being met, rolling these in glitter and presenting them as something else just doesn’t cut it.

We do need to be able to be direct or, as Scott calls it, challenge directly and this can be hard.

So here at Laughology, we have some ideas that might help you:

• Support people in understanding how to take feedback. Develop their personal emotional intelligence – how to understand the way they react to situations and how to manage emotions to get the best out of situations.
• But also develop their social intelligence - how to manage emotions to and from others; manage difficult situations, and conflict or perceived conflict.
• When you hear feedback you don’t like, give yourself time. Don’t respond straight away. Write down the emotions linked to that feedback. Is it anger, frustration, or hurt? If so, why might you be feeling these things?
• Do some self-reflection and if you still disagree with the feedback, write some constructive thoughts down to discuss with your manager or leader as to why that feedback was given. Explain why you feel the way you do, giving examples of behaviours where you feel the opposite has happened.
• A good way to deal with feedback you feel is hurtful - and something I use from my comedy days - is to write the feedback down after hearing it but purely using the facts. Try not to add any emotion to it.
• Give yourself a few hours or a day's distance from it and then come back to it. When you do, write an action list of things you can take from it to do better. Taking control in this way can be helpful.
• Encourage everyone to ask for feedback and when they do this, just say thank you. In doing so, people will be more inclined to give feedback. Rather than just asking for feedback as a leader or manager, ask people what would be helpful for you to stop doing - this encourages more constructive thinking.
• Framing what feedback is going to be given can be helpful. This should be done in the moment, so as not to leave the person wondering or worried about what’s coming. Check-in with how the person is feeling. At Laughology we call this CLICK:
  • Check how the person is feeling
  • Listen to the response (and use this as a signal for your conversations)
  • Is now a good time to chat about X situation?
  • Check again – are you okay for me to share this as it’s constructive? 
  • Kind feedback (meaning it should be based on behaviours and not personal)
• Recognise that people can go through a cycle with feedback. This can be shock, annoyance, refusal and acceptance. At these different stages, people may resist or take the message on board.
• Treading carefully is important. It’s helpful to keep checking in to make sure people are feeling okay. Don’t just give feedback and leave the person upset or trying to work things out themselves.
• Feedback should be given in a safe and helpful way. Do it in the moment or as soon as possible, and when the person is by themselves and not in front of a group. Research tells us that if we’ve built a good relationship with the person and they feel cared for and loved (yes, loved) they take feedback on board far better. But refer back to point 5 above. This can be an unknown.
• Create an ‘agreement’ for what feedback means. Talk about it and how you agree to act and behave together to help everyone get the best experience out of it. Writing up this agreement together as a team or for new individuals can be helpful. When giving feedback or receiving it, this can be a helpful reminder of how to behave.
• Change and flex your style depending on who’s in front of you. This can be difficult if the message isn’t landing. However, in the first instance, use questions to help people think and self-reflect. For example, ask, ‘How do you think X went…?’ Build on their answers and, if appropriate, use leading questions such as, ‘When you did X, how do you think it went?’ Or ‘What do you think my expectations are?’
• Don’t talk at people, listen to understand. This goes both ways. Really listen and empathise with their point of view and know that most people mean good.

Often we simply crave a ‘well done’ or ‘thank you’, and it’s jarring when we receive a tough evaluation of our behaviour or what we perceive to be negative feedback instead. We all have a responsibility to understand feedback a bit more - not only will it help us have an even better work experience but we’ll also feel happier at work too.

If you want some further tips and strategies for feeling happier at work, why not join our FREE webinar, Happy Talk, on 23rd September with Kerry Leigh? It’ll bring a smile to your face during lunchtime and, as it’s virtual, no one will be able to see if you’ve got spinach in your teeth. Winner.