Be a champion of feedback - Part One
Asked for or voluntary. Positive and encouraging, or damaging and offensive. Well said or poorly presented. Everyone gets it, and its arrival is often entirely out of our control -
Feedback.
Feedback can come from anyone, anywhere, and at any time. It could be a simple compliment about our newest haircut or a passive-aggressive murmur from a co-worker in a meeting.
Definition - Information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc., which is used as a basis for improvement.
If only feedback always felt like "information"...
How we perceive the purpose of feedback - and what we do to process it - is critical to an enriched, self-actualized way of life. And getting the most out of feedback requires us to sift it through an internal mechanism that dismisses the wrong, embraces the good, and puts excellent "information" into practice.
Our Feedback Mechanism
We all have a mechanism for processing feedback. Unfortunately, many people don't know that they have one, nor do they realize how damaging it can be when unrefined.
Our feedback mechanism is the inner story we tell ourselves when we receive input from others about our behaviors, habits, character, or performance. Like any underdeveloped trait, we need to develop our mechanism to receive feedback appropriately.
Those with healthy mechanisms are open to input from others, receptive to another perspective, grateful for suggestions, teachable, and authentically apply feedback.
Those with underdeveloped mechanisms are defensive, dismissive of new ideas, and easily offended.
Is your mechanism for processing feedback fueling or failing you?
Regardless of the state of your current mechanism, you're in luck!
You are in complete control of your mechanism. Starting today, you can make minor adjustments or renovate your entire view of feedback and its power in your life.
How do I know this? Because I learned how to receive feedback the hard way.
When I started my first job out of college, I was ambitious, passionate, and eager to improve. My boss invested in me as a father figure who often delivered suggestions through questions which caused me to come up with feedback without receiving it directly.
However, others on the team seemed to think I wasn't qualified for my job. Most days, their feedback would be in what they wouldn't say.
They complimented everyone else but me in meetings.
They would ask for help but say they were "fine" if I offered.
Eventually, they shared their thoughts more openly.
"You can't be that positive all the time."
"I just don't think you're genuine."
"Your energy can be too much for the office."
These comments conflicted with the very traits that got me the job!
My mechanism - like many people - wasn't developed enough for me to process these observations healthily.
I overthought. I replayed the tense conversations. I rehearsed what I would have said if I had more time to respond. I told myself to ignore them. Instead, I resented my co-workers...and worried they were right.
Over time, my mechanism became the filter through which I either accepted or rejected suggestions from others. I received what I liked and overthought/fixated on what I didn't. My inner narrative either fed my ego or confirmed my insecurities.
Sound familiar?
I see this repeated constantly in relationships, sports teams, and the workplace.
Intentionally developing our mechanism can radically influence our perception and help us extract even the tiniest sliver of value out of every conversation.
How we value feedback
I should stop now to clarify something important -
Not all feedback is equal.
I'm not implying that a healthy mechanism means we accept all feedback. If you made it through puberty, you probably received more than a dozen insults from other insecure adolescents that are ridiculous and dismissable.
Processing feedback healthily requires us to do one of three things with each suggestion - receive, reject, or revise.
Receiving feedback means you accept the information. You don't have to like the input given. You simply agree with what someone offered as helpful to you and your growth.
Rejecting feedback implies that you cannot accept any of the information you received from someone. We often reject what we don't like, but I caution you - not all off-putting messages are inherently untrue. Once I developed a healthy mechanism, I distinguished between the input and its delivery.
Great feedback sometimes falls in the abyss between the status of "receiving" and "rejecting."
Revising feedback allows room for interpretation and adaptation. We can acknowledge the useful bits by adjusting someone's suggestion and discarding those points that don't work for us.
For example, you got advice from a relative at a family dinner. In the 30-minute conversation, Uncle Bob offered advice on buying property. You consider Uncle Bob a bit unusual and offbeat, so you usually hold your breath when he shares his input.
However, one of his ideas confirms what you read in an article from a trusted source. Another suggestion seemed helpful but didn't apply to your situation. The third sounded as crazy as you knew him to be.
An unhealthy mechanism might tune Uncle Bob out or minimize his offerings.
A healthy mechanism would consider the truth, adapt the ideas to work for you, and chuckle at his quirks that weren't relevant.
Uncle Bob's scenario is superficial relative to other situations with much harder implications.
How do you navigate hard feedback from a parent, spouse, or boss? What do you do when your therapist observes something that catches you off guard?
I'll cover more details on how to process feedback in my next post. For now, I leave you with these questions to consider -
What do you do when you receive feedback?
Is your feedback mechanism working for you?
Are you debating whether to receive or reject input that could be helpful to revise?
