Why we give feedback
How long does it take to hear from your supervisor when something went wrong? Very quickly.
How long does it take to hear from your supervisor when something went right? Almost never.
This dichotomy reminds me of a line from the book Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen: "Feedback is often prompted by a problem."
I actually have this sentence written down on a Post-It note. It reminds me to consider feedback as being multidimensional - both on the giving and receiving ends.
Response to a problem is actually only one (out of many) reasons to give feedback. Yet, thinking through my own life, responding to a problem constitutes a huge majority of the feedback I’ve received and the feedback I’m responsible for giving. We don’t usually suddenly stop our day to take a moment and give someone some positive feedback when things are moving along smoothly. Leadership can so often feel like fighting one fire after another, and it consumes our days. We just hope to keep our head above water and not get too far behind.
And when we’re responding to a problem, we don’t always naturally frame it objectively around the actual problem, but we frame it around blame. Stone and Sheen offer these astute observations about how the perspective can be quite different when feedback is prompted by a problem:
When we are on the giving end, they describe it as, "We're confident that we've correctly identified the cause of the problem, and we're stepping up to address it."
When we are on the receiving end, they describe it as, "We don't hear it as ‘constructive’ anything. We hear it as blame."
This tendency can make our conversations and situations surrounding feedback challenging and stressful to navigate. Feedback gets a negative connotation and becomes something we are sensitive about.
***
So, what are other reasons why we might want to give feedback?
Status check - where are we toward our projected goals, how are we ranking
Appreciation - bring attention to something we are grateful for
Praise - positive reinforcement for something we want to see more of
While those are not our go-to reasons for giving feedback, we can intentionally become more aware that those are possibilities. We can actively choose to not be totally monopolized by the kind of feedback driven by problems.
As a leader, I’m personally trying to prime my feedback-giving mind to equally notice all types of feedback I might want to give and to be more conscious about which type the people I work with might be needing or asking for. For example, I write down one thing a day that has worked out, and I think about who may have contributed to it and how I can give them feedback that demonstrates that appreciation. It helps me actively come up with reasons to give other forms of feedback besides problem-prompted feedback. Sometimes this list reminds me to just say "thank you for a great job," or it prompts me to want to send a surprise gift with a hand-written card.
On the flip side, I’m also mindful about the kinds of feedback I receive and consider the context of why that person is giving me this feedback. If it is prompted by a problem, I understand that blame may be a driving factor, and I don’t get so personally affected. It helps me choose how to respond. As a conductor and leader, I can become the target for blame for a variety of reasons when there is a problem. Instead of going on the defense, I can usually keep my cool through understanding it's not personal and respond by refocusing the spotlight objectively on solving the problem - hopefully together. I can also notice what kind of feedback I’m missing and strategically ask for them from someone I work with.
Whether we are at the giving or receiving end of feedback, it helps to think about why we are giving or receiving feedback. Is it prompted by a problem? Are we being sucked into the blame game? Which other kinds of feedback may we be missing in our relationships with each other?
If you find this interesting, sign up to receive an email with each new post.
Subscribe my YouTube channel to explore accompanying videos and my artistic work.
