The Three Levels of Mastery in Taking Feedback

"Your presentation sucks."  Wow. That hurt. I was surprised, too.  I thought my manager was going to be impressed.  Did she have to say it that way? Could she have delivered the message in a better way?  Sure.  At that time, my initial reaction distracted me from recognizing that my presentation needed work so I could start to make it better.  Years later, I know that sometimes I have to look past how people say things and find the important points in what they say.  Not everyone is going to be expert at giving feedback, but I still need to be expert at taking negative feedback.

One time at the same company, we did a 360 review. When she received her review, my boss brought me into her office to say somebody commented that she curses too much.  She sounded upset.  She said she was upset. She asked me point blank whether I was the one who had said it. Then she said she was going to find out who said it.  I never spoke to anyone else on the team about the conversation, but I was pretty sure she had the same conversation with each one of them.

This was one of the worst things she could have done.  Anybody who was being honest in giving her the feedback would no longer be honest with her again. They might take a lesson from the experience and refrain from giving honest feedback to other bosses, coworkers, and maybe even other employees in the future. This lack of honesty would undermine the success of their future bosses, colleagues, employees, and companies. I do not look back and blame my former boss. The reality is that taking feedback just was not a skill she had at that time. Why would she have had that skill?  She might not have even thought of taking feedback as a skill.  At the time I did not see it that way either.

Only when I looked back at the incident later did I realize this happened in part because the company never gave training on how to take feedback in preparation for the 360 review.  I worked at another company which did hire a consulting firm to give training on how to take feedback before administering the 360 review. However, they did not treat taking feedback as a skill. Yes, they gave us information on how to give feedback, but we cannot learn how to take feedback by listening to a lecture any more than we can learn how to ride a bike by reading a book.  

We have to give feedback on the job, practice with learning activities, get expert feedback on how we gave feedback, make adjustments, and repeat. That is how we develop any skill.  The only way we achieve mastery in management is, among other things, by 1) mastering the skill of taking feedback ourselves and 2) developing the people on our teams to master the skill of taking feedback.  The teams who do this have an advantage over other teams.  You can easily find teams and entire companies who are weak in this area.  You would be hard pressed to find those who have mastered this skill.

When we hear of the importance of taking feedback, we can easily sit back and say, "Of course feedback matters."  But understanding something and being really good at it are two very different things. Have you endured great struggle for years in building your taking feedback skills?  If not, you can safely say you have a long way to go to master the skill of taking feedback.

At the lowest skill level of taking feedback, we get defensive. While people are giving us feedback, we interrupt them. We come up with reasons why they are wrong so we can dismiss their words and deny our own sense of vulnerability. We dispute them so we can restore our sense of superiority over them. As a result we remain stuck where we are.  

Why do we avoid negative feedback?  Why do we take the skill of taking feedback for granted? Are we too humbled by the possibility that we are not perfect? Is negative feedback too painful for us to endure?  Are we traumatized by the possibility that we are not superior to the person giving us negative feedback?  We have to ask ourselves what we lose by not getting negative feedback.  

What does true mastery in the skill of getting feedback mean?  You can read what I have written here about how managers of winning teams need to probe deeply to understand what is going on with the team and the impact of having a team that does not get or give feedback. Below I will share with you the three levels of mastering the skill of taking feedback.  

Level 1 - Apprentice

On the first level toward mastery of getting feedback, you are more accepting of the feedback you get. Rather than defend, you ask clarifying questions to better understand the feedback.  You spend time reflecting on the negative feedback.  

At this stage you are uncomfortable with getting feedback, especially negative feedback.  You still worry that soliciting negative feedback is a sign of weakness, but you understand that bravery cannot exist without vulnerability. You still feel the urge to slip into defensiveness, interruption, and denial, but you are aware enough to resist those temptations. The fact that this requires your full attention while you expend maximum mental and emotional effort is a sign that you are beyond your Comfort Zone and firmly in your Learning Zone.

I was interviewing a candidate for a job, and he seemed unfazed by any question I threw at him. I wanted to take him out of his Comfort Zone, so I asked him to give me some negative feedback. He told me I did not maintain full eye contact the entire time we had been speaking. I realized that he had been staring at my left eye the entire conversation. I explained that he was wrong to think that absolute eye contact is necessary. It is actually not natural. We want to find the sweet spot with eye contact -- not too much and not too little. I quickly realized I had fallen into the disputing trap.  I did not lead by example in that situation.  Upon reflection, I could have started by asking questions to understand why he found that I do not make enough eye contact.

Level 2 - Practitioner

On the next level up, you do not just accept and seek to understand the feedback you receive. You actively seek out feedback in general and negative feedback in particular. When you get that negative feedback, you welcome it. Your initial response is to express gratitude to the person for giving you the negative feedback. You treat negative feedback as a gift. You take it a step further and make adjustments based on that negative feedback. You practice translating negative feedback into learning goals. You may need to recruit the input of an expert to help translate those learning goals into specific practice activities.  

This is where the true power starts to kick into gear. The skill of taking negative feedback introduces the awareness needed to initiate course corrections earlier and make improvements sooner. The negative feedback becomes less of a threat and more of a matter-of-fact opportunity for insight and deep reflection. Whether the person is right or wrong is less important.  If somebody is thinking the negative feedback, would you rather know or be oblivious? Whatever your answer is to that question, magnify it so that the entire organization is doing the same thing. Does that work?

I once had somebody reveal to me that they were far more willing to take negative feedback from a more senior person who knew what they were talking about than from a less experienced junior-level employee. I assigned them the homework of soliciting negative feedback from a more junior-level person. This on-the-job learning activity served three purposes.  First, they needed to get over their hierarchical view of who has a right to give feedback. Second, this would cultivate the feedback-giving skills in younger people.  Third, this allowed them to lead by example and increase the likelihood and ability of those junior-level employees to solicit negative feedback.

Level 3 - Master

On the top level of taking feedback, you can no longer expect to just ask for negative feedback and get it. People are intentionally and actively hiding negative feedback from you. You are expert at early warning signs and probing beneath the surface to unearth negative feedback. This will naturally happen as you are more senior within the organization.  People are afraid to share their negative feedback with you because the personal risk does not justify any reward they can imagine.  The slightest sign of some repercussion will cause them to keep negative feedback to themselves.  

You build others’ skills of giving negative feedback. You are vigilant in creating a culture where people feel safe to give negative feedback to you and to others.  Kim Scott's Radical Candor is a must-read book on this subject.  The times when you receive negative feedback without having to solicit it are a victory.  

If what I describe sounds strange to you, it is.  The culture where people freely give negative feedback is quite unique and foreign, but do not fool yourself into thinking it is impossible.  Ray Dalio gave a TED Talk on how he instituted Radical Transparency at his organization. He shows how a 24-year-old employee right out of college publicly gave him, the CEO of one of the world's largest hedge funds, negative feedback.  You can watch it here.

This concept is so foreign to so many companies in so many industries that it reveals tremendous opportunities. Dalio applied this to the hedge fund industry, and it translated into success in other ways. Has anyone in your industry achieved this level of mastery in taking feedback?

Where do you stand in the path toward mastering the art of taking feedback? Have you gotten feedback on your feedback-taking skills? Have you solicited feedback from someone who would make you uncomfortable? Do people only share negative feedback with you when you ask for it? Remember that during your journey toward mastery, being uncomfortable is a sign that you are in your Learning Zone.

Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

Welcome to The Learning Zone: Three People Development Skills for the Manager to Master

Can you honestly say you have mastered the ability to develop skills in other people?  One of your key competencies as a manager is designing learning plans and implementing those learning plans through coaching, feedback, and mental models.  This is a skill which is so obvious when I tell people that everyone agrees, yet managers who have truly mastered this skill are a rare find.  In my experience, managers tell people what to learn, what to do, or how to do something and pretty much leave it at that, which is unfortunate because they miss out on some rich opportunities in contributing to the growth of others and in achieving some rewarding growth of their own.

To guide someone through the learning process, you want them to step into their Learning Zone.  What is the Learning Zone?  The Learning Zone is that place just beyond the Comfort Zone and before the Panic Zone.  When activities are too easy, they do not require as much effort.  People can grow bored and distracted, and learning is limited.  When activities prove too challenging, they push people to the point where panic ensues.  Aggressive behavior or pressure that is too high can arouse the fight or flight instincts, and learning is also limited.  In that sweet spot the activities push the person just beyond their current ability and require full attention and near-maximal effort.  This is where learning happens.

I was once coaching a manager who got frustrated with a more junior employee for not responding to a client issue in the way they had expected.  They lashed out at the junior employee and the conversation grew heated and escalated.  The manager wondered why the junior employee was not learning the “right” way.  It took multiple conversations to help the manager understand they had more to learn.  Their aggressive behavior elicited a defensive response, and no real learning was possible for the junior employee.  Blaming the other person for not learning is the easy way out, but learning is stifled there.  Developing the skill to be frustrated and still guide another person into their Learning Zone is key for the manager. 

Is this easy to achieve?  No, each person’s Learning Zone is unique and constantly shifting.  The Learning Zone begins just beyond the current abilities of that individual at that point in time.  As the current abilities improve, the Learning Zone moves farther out, so the Learning Zone is also a dynamic target.  The learning activities must be continuously altered for the individual to develop mastery. 

The manager must have an intimate awareness of the person’s abilities.  They must establish a deep and frequent connection to the person they are coaching, which can be a challenge in practice.  At the same time, the manager is developing their own ability to develop others.  Developing their personal skills in feedback, learning plans, and learning activities will improve their ability to develop the skills of others.

Skill #1:  Feedback – The Give and Take

Any coach must give feedback so people can adjust based on what they are doing that does and does not work.  The feedback should be honest and respectful.  If the feedback is laced with some kind of attack, aggression, sarcasm, etc., the person will more likely be distracted by the intention or delivery and miss out on the learning opportunity.  The best approach is to come from a genuine place of wanting to support the person.

I have found that starting the feedback with “You want to…” and explaining what works helps the person absorb the message.  I like following it up with “You don’t want to…”  If they have not actually done the undesirable behavior, and I want to preempt it, I might say, “Some people do this, which doesn’t work because…”  Clarifying the impact of the negative behavior helps.  Then I restate the desirable action, and I might even model it.  As much as possible, I try to find the things they did which work well and encourage them to take that farther and do more of it.

Taking feedback is a difficult skill every successful manager must master.  This is more than just listening to feedback and not getting upset, though that is important.  The true mastery of taking feedback is listening with an open mind without defending or disputing even if the other person is wrong or disrespectful.  Treat feedback as a gift even when it is not delivered that way.  A friend of mine was CEO of a non-profit and one of the board members began yelling at him and blaming him for a situation.  My friend listened silently until the board member finished, and calmly thanked him for being open with him about thoughts that others were probably thinking but too afraid to voice.  Then he could address the accusations point by point. 

The goal of feedback is to stay connected to what others think and feel about you.  By welcoming candid feedback, you improve your awareness and connection.  As the manager, you also set the example that others will follow, whether you realize it or not.  Once you achieve mastery in taking feedback, you are better positioned to guide others through the skill of taking feedback. 

The alternative is an atmosphere where issues are not addressed and fester until they explode.  Then later everyone wonders how the environment became so toxic.  A culture where people can openly share candid feedback lays the foundation for healthy and productive group dynamics. 

Not only do you need to welcome feedback, you also need to actively seek it out.  This is one of the greatest dangers a manager faces.  The higher up you are as a manager, the more you are at risk of being disconnected from what is really going on below the surface.  Probing below the surface is a very specific skill.  I recommend the manager regularly bring the team together and ask, “How are we working together as a team?”  The tendency in some groups will be to play it safe and not speak openly about issues.  The manager must break through this or risk being sidelined by team dysfunction.

Have you experienced challenges in giving and receiving feedback?  If so, what techniques have you found that work?

Skill #2:  Learning Plans – Translating Feedback into Skills

Feedback serves little use unless it leads to positive adjustment.  Each piece of feedback regarding what does not work reveals some underlying skill which requires development.  If you are receiving feedback, you may have to take the initiative to translate your feedback into needed skills.  If you are the manager giving the feedback, you will want to do this as the next step.  I prefer not to use the terms behavior or bad habits because they can sound like unchangeable actions.  Instead, I frame them as skills because they are interpreted as something which can be improved through practice.

Identifying the skills to be developed requires much more thought than just giving feedback in the moment.  I find this happens best when I am alone and need to reflect deeply on the person now and in the future.  Taking this step signifies to the person that you care enough about them to invest serious time thinking about and supporting their long-term success.  It helps frame the most negative feedback in a collaborative light for a manager / employee, mentor / mentee, teacher / pupil, coach / athlete, or master / apprentice relationship. 

This step also helps focus the feedback.  I generally start with a list of the feedback that I want to share.  The list starts as a stream of consciousness.  If I spend no time preparing for the delivery of the feedback, it will come across as scattered and confusing, so I have to spend the time organizing the thoughts.  Once I start identifying the skills that go with each piece of feedback, I end up grouping the feedback together based on the skill that will address the feedback.  For example, I once had some feedback for someone who had been aggressive with others and said some offensive things.  I categorized these together under the skill of communicating with respect.  This helped me deliver the message in a more concise way, and it helped them understand and remember the message later.

Have you ever had somebody put together a learning plan for you?  What were the best mentoring experiences you have had?

Skill #3:  Learning Activities – Building the Skills

The final component of designing the Learning Program is the list of Learning Activities.  This is where you take one skill at a time and identify an activity that will develop that skill.  I like to come up with three activities for a skill, but some skills require more while others require fewer.  You can use any format that works for you.  I use a table with three columns.  Column 1 is the Feedback.  Column 2 identifies the Skill.  Column 3 details the Learning Activities.  Most practice is solitary practice, so try to come up with Learning Activities that the person can eventually practice on their own.

For example, one employee was very capable with the technical and verbal aspects of the job.  However, his written communication was filled with grammatical errors.  I progressively gave him more challenging activities to improve his grammar skills.  First, I corrected his grammatical errors and explained them.  Next, I began having him make the corrections that I gave him.  Then I started having him find and make the corrections on his own.  Finally, I started asking him how somebody could misinterpret his message and how he could improve the specificity of his language.

The person will have to repeat the activity many times to master it.  I often prefer to introduce one Learning Activity at a time.  This can feel a little daunting to the manager because getting through the Learning Activities can take a very long time.  I once had an employee who had a single incident that translated into six areas of feedback, six skills needed, and 18 Learning Activities.  Each Learning Activity would take a minimum of weeks of repetition to master.  That meant the Learning Activities would take months or years to complete.  This is a good thing.  Development of skills is a long-term journey.

I usually only share about one Learning Activity at a time.  The idea is to not overwhelm the person.  Allow them to focus on mastering that activity before moving on to the next one.  The feedback, the skills, and the Learning Activities should be delivered in short chunks of information instead of long speeches or long meetings.  Rather than meeting for one hour once a week, five fifteen-minute meetings are more effective.  This gives the person more of an opportunity to absorb the message more completely.

The manager must master the skills of designing Learning Plans and follow through to implement those plans.  The disconnected managers of the world will just tell people what does not work or what results to get without providing the support to the team to develop those skills.  The connected manager is more engaged and takes ownership of the development of their team.

When you are interviewing for a new job, I highly recommend asking the hiring manager what specific skills they have developed in their employees.  You can follow up by asking how they developed those skills.  Do they have a solid answer, or are they just searching for something to say?  You can ask them what feedback they get from their employees.  Do they take the follow-up steps to develop their own skills?  Do they actively solicit feedback from their employees, so they can keep their finger on the pulse of their team, or do they blindly assume they are in touch with their team?  Their answers to these questions will help you understand what to expect if you were to work for them.

What skills has your manager developed in you?  If you are a manager, what specific skills have you developed in your team? 

Photo by Mathias Jensen on Unsplash.