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Feedback is a regular part of almost everything we do. Even a simple “like” on Facebook or “favorite” on Twitter is a form of evaluation. While social media feedback is mostly innocuous, being assessed by a higher up, like a sales manager, can be really tough to take. We’re only human and although we want to learn and grow, we also want our work to be accepted as it is.
Consultant and Harvard Law School lecturer Douglas Stone takes this matter on in his new book, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. Stone and his co-author Sheila Heen found while a lot of time and effort is put into how to give evaluations, how to take pointers is all but ignored. And yet, the receiver is the one who has to make the choice about what the feedback means and whether or not to change in any way.
Next time you find yourself on the receiving end of a performance review or any other form of job evaluation, keep these five tips from Stone and Heen in mind:
We all typically have the same reaction to feedback, which Stone calls the “Google bias.” It’s as if you googled the phrases “everything that’s bad about me” or “everything stupid I’ve ever done.” Both of these imaginary lists can be overwhelming in their scale. Stone recommends avoiding the dramatic tendency to line up every negative thing possible. A more beneficial perspective would be to google “things about me that are good and bad.”
Your world as you know it is not over. If your sales manager tells you your numbers are down this quarter, that doesn’t mean your numbers will be down for every quarter going forward, or that the last five years of beating your quota has been a fluke. Don’t distort the feedback by, as Stone says, rewriting the past or rewriting the future. It really is just about this quarter’s sales numbers.
Stone says there are, for the most part, two types of feedback: judgement and coaching. A performance review where you’re told your work “doesn’t meet expectations” is judgement. Your sales manager telling you that you need a different approach in one region than you use in another region is an example of coaching. Most feedback is coaching, even if it has a little judgement worked in. Coaching is easier to swallow. Coaching can make you better at what you do and that is a good thing.
This sounds like the easy part, but Stone says it’s also where much of the misunderstanding happens. One salesperson was told to be more aggressive and took it to mean they should relentlessly push customers until they close the deal. What their boss actually meant is that they should lean in and show more of themselves during conversations with their customers. Be respectful, but make sure you clarify the feedback you are getting. Your manager may also benefit, especially if they have misinterpreted in some way how have been going about doing your job.
When given feedback, have the mindset that you are going to try it out a few times and see how it goes. Stone says this helps you be more receptive. He also recommends asking for one thing you should most work on, even during an evaluation where you get feedback on multiple areas. This demonstrates that you embrace what you’re being told and want to actually implement it into what you do. It also avoids having a sudden avalanche of things you need to work on, which can feel impossible.
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