I used to pretend that I like constructive feedback.
“Who doesn’t?” I told myself, “You have to use feedback to learn and grow. If you feel bad about it, then it must be your problem. Your goal is to outgrow it.”
I grew and grew over the years. As a startup founder, I solicited feedback from various stakeholders, my investors, advisors, employees and our customers. I learned how to take negative feedback, even if unexpected or unjustified, and try to turn it into a constructive outcome. In my corporate job at Amazon and Google, feedback is built into the annual/quarterly evaluation cycle (called Forte at Amazon and Perf/GRAD at Google). We also encourage managers and peers to give more timely, constructive feedback to help people improve and grow.
Feedback, especially negative ones, seems to serve a really positive intention. Truth is, after so many years, I still don’t like it. Having been an employee, founder and leader myself, I have also realized that most people don’t. Research shows that even though managers believe their employees are open to constructive feedback; the employees report that despite their willingness to grow, they do not like it.
Then what’s the problem?
We do want to learn and grow, but our human brain is also hardwired with a more basic need: to be accepted. In the article “Find the Coaching in Criticism,” Harvard Law professors Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone found that even well-intentioned feedback “spark an emotional reaction, inject tension into the relationship, and bring communication to a halt”. Negative feedback, especially if unsolicited, is painful.
We do want to learn and grow, but our human brain is also hardwired with a more basic need: to be accepted. In the article “Find the Coaching in Criticism,” Harvard Law professors Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone found that even well-intentioned feedback “spark an emotional reaction, inject tension into the relationship, and bring communication to a halt”. Negative feedback, especially if unsolicited, is painful.
Consider the following scenario in the workplace between Evan and his manager Peter:
Evan: Jeff is really hard to work with. I was hoping to move our project forward by chatting with him through the messages but he insisted on having a live meeting. This project is very important and we can’t delay it any more. I was already overwhelmed with my schedules and really don’t have time to do that.
Peter: I appreciate you taking on a lot of tasks at the same time; but I would like to give you a piece of feedback as I have noticed it as a recurring pattern recently: You need to better manage your priority. If this project is really important, you should just meet with Jeff.
For Evan, the hard part of this conversation is that what Peter said is not entirely wrong, in reality the feedback and suggestion could be totally valid given the situation. This fact makes the feedback emotionally difficult for him to accept. After thinking it through and processing the reasoning behind it, Evan might feel very defeated and realized that he made a huge mistake and was losing trust from his manager. Granted, there are situations that a manager might intentionally want to provide feedback in this way to push their employees to make necessary changes. However, these conversations could turn out to be less effective than people had expected, and cause long-term harm.
What’s a better way?
In a lot of scenarios, there is a more productive approach to help people uncover blindspots, facilitate learning and growth. Leveraging the coaching approach of reflective inquiries, one person can help the other engage in reflecting their own thinking, examining the beliefs and identifying gaps. Through this partnership, insights will reveal, action steps emerge, and growth accelerates. At the end of the day, we are more critical to ourselves than anyone else, don’t we? We are also experts in knowing our problems, making decisions and changing ourselves.
Consider how the same conversation above could go in a different direction:
Evan: Jeff is really hard to work with. I was hoping to move our project forward by chatting through the messages but he insisted on having a live meeting. I was already overwhelmed with my schedules and really don’t have time to do that.
Peter: I appreciate you taking on a lot of important tasks at the same time; and you seemed really frustrated about his meeting request. What was making it particularly hard for you?
Evan: Hmm… I guess I was spreading myself too thin recently. The amount of work and deadlines have been making me swamped. I surely need to find a better way to prioritize.
Peter: Sounds like this project is definitely one of the highest priorities but is now blocked. Given this situation, what do you think is the best way to move it forward?
Evan: I guess the best option right now is to have a quick meeting with him to unblock the next steps, and at the same time set up the expectation that we could use messages in the future to drive efficiency.
Peter: Sounds like a great plan. Handling too many pressing projects could definitely be challenging and may be counterproductive. Let’s talk about how we could shift the tasks a bit and help you better prioritize.
In this example, Peter used the coaching approach of reflective inquiry to engage in a collaboration conversation with Evan. Through the thought process, Peter elicited the solution for the pressing problem, as well as a broader growth area of better prioritization. The best part of it is that all the insights were from Evan himself, which makes it much easier for him to adopt in their future behaviors.
To be fair, this technique is not always suitable for all circumstances. However, as executives, managers and leaders in organizations, leveraging coaching as an alternative to direct feedback certainly contributes to more powerful communication. Used effectively in management, it could drive more effective change, boost morale and foster long-term professional growth for our teams.
