We are terrible at feedback
A part of me never feels like I'm quite good enough, knowledgeable enough, wise enough to truly take on the huge responsibility of being on the podium. At the same time, I knew deep down that it is impossible for me to know everything. Yet, my professional training and experiences painted a stereotypical picture that as the conductor on the podium, I should be the source of all answers and solutions. And I felt the enormous pressure to strive to fit that image.
When I lead on the podium, I often ask myself: Are my comments and feedback really helping? Who am I to tell anyone else what's the right way to do anything?
The feeling of perpetual incompetence led to low confidence and broken self-esteem that impaired my performances.
I came across the article "The Feedback Fallacy" by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, and it validated these feelings and internal questions.
Through research, the authors reveal that we are actually terrible at giving others feedback. They share three fallible theories we use to govern how we give feedback, and how "the more we depend on them, and the more technology we base on them, the less learning and productivity we will get from others."
1. Source of truth: "Our evaluations are deeply colored by our own understanding of what we’re rating others on, our own sense of what good looks like for a particular competency, our harshness or leniency as raters, and our own inherent and unconscious biases. This phenomenon is called the idiosyncratic rater effect, and it’s large (more than half of your rating of someone else reflects your characteristics, not hers) and resilient (no training can lessen it). In other words, the research shows that feedback is more distortion than truth."
2. How we learn: "Learning is less a function of adding something that isn’t there than it is of recognizing, reinforcing, and refining what already is. [Research shows that] focusing people on their shortcomings or gaps doesn’t enable learning. It impairs it."
3. Excellence: "the third belief is that great performance is universal, analyzable, and describable, and that once defined, it can be transferred from one person to another, regardless of who each individual is. [Instead] excellence seems to be inextricably and wonderfully intertwined with whoever demonstrates it. Each person’s version of it is uniquely shaped and is an expression of that person’s individuality. Which means that, for each of us, excellence is easy, in that it is a natural, fluid, and intelligent expression of our best extremes. It can be cultivated, but it’s unforced."
This article made me think deeply.
The "distortion" in the feedback we receive leads us astray in what we think of ourselves and how we decide to improve. This pertains to both criticism and praise. And it leads to our believing that "excellence" is defined by others, externally and via some universal metric. However, for most work (especially the arts), the metrics are subjective and therefore largely unreliable.
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Maybe one way to approach feedback is via encouraging introspection. Here are some ways Marcus Buckingham suggests we can reframe:
Positive feedback often sounds like "you were great at A, B, or C."
An alternative may be asking, "When were you at your best? Where do people tend to rely on you?"
Negative feedback often sounds like "X, Y, Z didn't go so well. You can fix it by doing these things."
An alternative may be asking, "When did you feel like you needed help? What might help look like for you going forward?"
Using introspective questions gives people agency to take responsibility for their own reflection and growth.
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Meanwhile, leaders cannot only ask questions. We need to actually give feedback, too.
How might we reframe how we give feedback as to not give in to the pitfalls of the feedback fallacies?
We can see the feedback we give as data we give to the recipient. The recipient can then decide what they do with the information. We are foremost sharing our perspectives and reactions without judgment.
We can use phrases like "It seems like this is the issue" or "I feel like this is happening here." This provides a mirror that reflects the situation as we experience it from the outside so they can see more clearly.
When we frame our feedback as a reaction or a response from us, we remove our role as the person who must be right and who must dictate.
Along the same lines, our perspectives are equally important for positive feedback. Our talents and areas of excellence are often so natural and matter-of-fact to us that we are completely blind to them. A leader's reactions can highlight these pre-existing strengths. It helps reveal that the people indeed have value to give and that this value is recognizable by others who see and appreciate it.
This is in direct alignment with what the article describes as innate excellence - seeing it for what it is and bringing out the best of it.
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We all have the capacity to find some answers within ourselves to further growth. We don't need to wait for someone else to tell us what to do or how to do it all the time. For many of us, we've expected these answers to come externally - from a teacher, a leader, a coach, and someone older or more experienced. In doing so, we actually disempowered ourselves. And our leaders who operate under the same mindset of "telling" keep us in that state.
Leaders and their people are partners in effective feedback. Both need to give information and engage in dialogue. We can begin by using introspective questions and considering feedback as a leader's reactions. We can then use both sets of data as a springboard for dialogue to diagnose challenges and grow together.
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