Giving and Receiving Feedback

When questioned by a dear one on why I am angry, be sure to hear those famous words, “I am not angry”, with a noticeable spit spray. Receiving feedback is a crucial change agent when mutual trust and respect is at the heart of any conversation. Trust and Respect are like the air we breathe. If we take it away from a discussion, that is all people can think about.

 

Three observable symptoms when someone is still raw at giving or receiving feedback:

• Controlling - forcing views or dominating conversations; methods include interjecting, using directive questions, changing subjects, overstating facts, speaking in absolutes.

• Labelling - stereotyping ideas  to dismiss under a general category

• Attacking - moving from winning an argument to making the person suffer; tactics include belittling and threatening.

 

So, how to receive feedback? 

Take a deep breath. Make relaxed eye contact with a barely noticeable smile. Lean forward and listen actively to make mental notes. Ask questions as required in a neutral tone. Apologise if needed and let them know how much you value this feedback conversation. If you need time to prepare for a dialogue on this matter at a later time, clarify that you may follow up. If it means the views to be contrasting, there is no need to force a compromise unless absolutely required for the mutually committed purpose.

 

If you are in no mood for feedback or did not actively solicit it, receive it anyway. Consider every feedback conversation as an interview for a job that you need or you are being interviewed on national television, and you will jump right in the mood.

 

As a follow-up, reflect. Separate the facts from feelings. Some mixup can occur where feelings can feel like a fact but can identify by the stories we tell ourselves. Clever stories are the ones that we need to work upon - victim stories that make you ignore the role you played; villain stories that you overemphasise the blame on others; helpless stories that put you in a forward blindness making you think there are no alternatives. Convert the clever story to a useful story that can turn victims to actors, villains to humans and the helpless to the abled.

 

Questions to consider before giving a feedback:

 

1. Am I the right one to give this feedback or is there anyone else better suited to do that?
2. Is the motive of my feedback is in the person's interest?
3.  Is it the appropriate time now or should you wait for another right time?
4. Am I going to be sensitive while handling the "how am I going to say it" part?

 

If answers to all the above questions are a resounding YES, only then give the feedback. The same also applies to giving advice.

 

How to give feedback?

 

Remember the acronym STATE:

• Share your facts
• Tell your story
• Ask for other’s
• Talk tentatively
• Encourage testing

 

If you made the person laugh about themselves without overbearing with lots of examples, you have reasonably succeeded.

 

— Inspired from Crucial Conversations and Life's Amazing Secrets