Life Kit - How To Receive Feedback

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Receiving feedback doesn't necessarily have to be terrifying, according to Shanita Williams, a feedback coach, professor and author of Feedback Mentality.In this episode, Williams and Stacy-Marie Ishmael, a writer and editor, provide five tips to make receiving feedback a little less scary and something that's just part of doing the work.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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And at the mere mention of an annual review, my blood runs cold. One of the scariest things a person could ever say to me is, hey, can I give you a little feedback? Maybe it also gives you an icy, sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. I don't know. So oftentimes we sit in these conversations and we're just like, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. We don't say anything. Or. Rin and Barrett just like sort of like silent.

Don't even breathe. I think that I often, I just like don't, I stop breathing. I'm just like, okay. Like, I guess I'll die. I'm going to take it, take it, take it. Okay, I'm taking it in. That's Janita Williams, and she's a professor, author, and feedback coach, which means she trains people on how to give, and more importantly for today, how to receive feedback.

She wants to help people think about it a different way. Feedback is insight that really helps us understand ourselves in a different way. Today, we're doing what we do best here on Life Kit. We're making scary things less scary. Getting feedback doesn't have to be painful. Being good at receiving feedback means not getting afraid or defensive. Without having people who can highlight for us the things we cannot see, we are honestly walking through this world doing our very best, right?

But we are missing keen opportunities to improve our performance, to improve relationships, and to truly reach the goals that we have for our lives. And our first takeaway today is something that Shanita recommended to stave off that panic. And that is, you don't have to take every bit of feedback that you're given. So I think that's where we get it wrong, is that we think any bit of information is meaning that we are less than as a person, or that we are unworthy or unfit or incapable, when really feedback is just information and you have the power to decide what you do with it. For the version of yourself that has to unclench your jaw and lower your shoulders away from your

ears as soon as somebody mentions that they have thoughts on your performance, it can be really grounding to remember that you have power. And that's the thing I think is another kind of like misnomer about feedback is they think, oh, because someone gave this to me, I have to, I have to implement this. I have to change. But what I want people to get is that it's an empowering thing. You have choice at the end of the day. You don't have to do anything with it. Like you get to use that as information and make an informed decision about what you want to do with your life with it. Our other expert in this episode is an absolute boss.

They're a writer and editor who maybe you remember from the Career Corner segment on the podcast Another Round, Stacey Marie Ishmael. Stacey Marie has a story about feedback that I think of kind of as a cautionary tale. Stacey Marie was in a conference room full of people talking to a designer after a presentation. I'm sort of mid-spiel of thanking a person, and another designer pipes in and says, Stacey Marie, I don't understand why you're so condescending all the time. And I was just, like, stunned into silence. Now Stacey Marie is not the kind of person who is often stunned into silence. And I stewed on it for two days trying to figure out what had happened. And I eventually wrote an email back to that person and I said, let me talk to you about the racial and gender dynamics of that room and that encounter and how I understood what you just did and why I feel that it was totally inappropriate.

And the reason I wanted to talk about this example is that very plainly, biases like sexism and racism or just plain rudeness are not feedback. Full stop. Stacey Marie is showing us that first takeaway in action. You get to decide the feedback that you're going to incorporate into your life. And you get to decide which stuff you're going to yeet into the sun because it's not worth your time. And like I said, Stacey Marie is a boss and that's how they dealt with it. And I said, something that you don't understand is how careful me and people like me are when careful in the feedback that I was giving to the designer at the time and how I was delivering it. And I was genuinely both astonished and appalled that you considered both your comments to me and giving them to me in that room to be appropriate reactions. And then I, you know, I walked away from my desk for like an hour and I came back and I removed some exclamation marks and I put some other ones in. And then I sent it to them. So after you've realized that you don't need to take in every bit of feedback in the entire

universe, how do you decide what's going to be helpful? Shanita has a super smart way of doing that. And that's takeaway number two. SIFT. S-I-F-T. Through the feedback. That's right. We're getting cute with our acronyms today.

You are welcome. So S is for the source. Consider who is giving you the feedback. Who is this coming from? Is this from somebody I trust or is it coming from a complete stranger? If it is somebody I trust, I put more weight in that. The I is for impact, which helps you gauge the scale of the feedback that you're receiving. If somebody says, look, honey, you got to change your life. That's different than feedback about, you know, changing your email signature. So source, impact, and then F. Frequency, the frequency, we've heard

it before, right? So how often, right? Is this just, I heard it once in a lifetime or I'm hearing this every week. It helps you start to see the urgency with which this behavior is showing up in your life. Shout out to all of you who got the same comments on every single report card. You know what? You do your too much friendly conversation, okay? You are a pleasure to have in class. Never change. So the T in Shanita's SIFT acronym stands for trends, and it helps you put the feedback

into larger context. Like, is this happening in just one situation? Or is it happening in a lot of areas of your life? And if so, what does that trend mean? So that's our fun little SIFT model to help you remember how to think about feedback. Source, impact, frequency, and trends. And if you can pull all of that insight together, it's not a foolproof process, but it helps you be more intentional about thinking about,

should I hold on to this? Or is this something I can simply let go? And that's a personal experience, but I found that it's really helpful to bringing the logical brain online to a very emotional experience for many. Our third takeaway today is one I can say that I've been actively trying to use in my real adult life. And that is when you get feedback, see if you can slow it down so that you can process it more completely. When Stacey Marie was figuring out how to send that email to the guy who said that they were condescending, there was a two-day stewing and pacing process that came first, and the fiddling with the exclamation points. Giving yourself some space to realize that very likely your performance review is not a life or death emergency can make

it easier to listen with an open mind. Active listening, where you make sure you're on the same page by repeating back what you understood so that the other person can stay with you, is a really good technique that Stacey Marie uses. One of the phrases I use so often is, I'm hearing this, can I repeat that back to you to make sure I understand? And I often use that to give myself time when I feel like I'm about to like hit the roof

because I'm so annoyed by whatever it is they've told me. I'm like, all right, internalize, you know, let me make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Active listening can slow the pace of a conversation down just enough so that you stop hearing your heartbeat in your ears and you can take a breath. Stacey Marie says that it can help you listen for the things that could be helpful in the feedback instead of getting defensive. Let me repeat this back to you to make sure I'm understanding or some variation on that I have found to be one helpful

as a personal timeout, but too helpful to that active listening of what is the germ of truth in this thing that I might not necessarily appreciate and how can we focus on the productive part of the conversation. Another thing it can do is help you separate feedback that is sort of like unspecific or hard to parse from the things that will actually make you improve. And this goes for positive feedback as well as negative, because positive feedback can sometimes be like super vague and not very helpful. If you have a manager who is not big on, who is like, good job, full stop. Or yeah, it's fine, right? Like we've been there, we know those folks, and you genuinely have no idea what's going on until they've gone into a rage about something that you didn't know you weren't delivering. One you can ask, you know,

thanks so much, I really appreciate that you liked it. Is there anything that you might have done differently or suggested that I do differently, right? And that's often a useful way just to kind of have a better understanding of how their brain works. One more super smart way to give yourself time to process feedback is to just say that that's what you need. Stacey Marie suggests that you can even ask for some notes to review at a later time if you're feeling like too sweaty and stressed to listen. One of the things you can absolutely ask and say is, thank you so much. I would love some time to think about this. Can we have a follow-up conversation?

Or, you know, can you send me like your notes on this? I'd love to be able to review them and then we can talk again. Shanita is also a big fan of the notes technique. You can even take them yourself. I'm going to just jot down some of the things that you're saying so that I can make sure that we can really talk about each of these things. Because oftentimes when you get feedback, it's a, I call it like a tangled necklace.

Look, I used to work at a jewelry store, so I have spent many an afternoon untangling necklaces. And it's hard. And the way we're going to undo this particular tangled necklace is with an acronym. I love this. Today we're like, you get an acronym, and you get an acronym. And it's our fourth takeaway. It's called OPEN, and it stands for Observe, Probe, Express, Next Steps.

O stands for observe. You want to observe your thoughts, your feelings, and your body language to make sure that you're present. P stands for probe. So you want to ask as many questions as you can to gain clarity, to make sure you leave that conversation clear about really what is the opportunity. E is express. You want to express thanks and your understanding of what was just shared so that you leave there feeling really confident and grateful for just having that conversation. And last is next steps. You get to take full ownership of what you do with that information and have a plan on what you're going to do, either use it or not.

What's great about the open technique to me is that it really lets you interrogate the feedback that you're getting so that you can make decisions about how you move forward. And that can change depending on where you're at in your career or even where you are in the world. What you have to teach yourself to listen for is what in there do I recognize? Even if I disagree with their interpretation of it, but what in there do I recognize? And what is that telling me about my own behavior or the context in which I'm operating? Because sometimes you might have a trait that is very successful in one environment. I'll use one that's not related to work. I'm a very fast walker. And so when I'm in New York, I'm like, my people. When I'm anywhere else, everyone's like, what? Why? Is there a fire?

Like, why are you walking so quickly? So as the context changes, don't forget to adjust the way that you receive the feedback, and especially to consider the power dynamics of your workplace and your position when you're taking it in. I haven't changed at all, but the context has. And so, you know, as I've switched contexts, as I've switched roles, as I've adjusted to different industries and different types of seniority, I've had to really pay attention to what someone is reacting to might be the same thing that worked for me somewhere else, but is being received differently by this person in this environment, and not to take that personally. I have to admit

that now that I have Stacey Marie and Shanita's advice in my back pocket, I'm not really as afraid not just of asking for feedback, but of taking it in. So you know what? Go ahead. Tell me how you feel about this episode. I can take it and I can sift it and I can open myself and it's all going to be fine. Okay, my little life kitties, before I send you off into your bold, unafraid world where you can get feedback like champs, let's do a little recap so you have it all in your head. Takeaway number one is remember that you don't have to use every bit of feedback that comes to you you have the power you get to take full ownership of what you do with that information

and have a plan on what you're going to do either use it or not takeaway number two is sift it consider the source the impact the frequency and the trends analyze the information that's coming to you and make an informed decision about what to do with it. Takeaway number three, don't be afraid to slow things down. Ask lots of questions and process the feedback that you're getting. And take notes. Ask low stakes questions. Is there anything that you might have done differently or suggested that I do differently? And finally, takeaway number four is to keep yourself open. Observe, probe, express how you feel, and then decide on next steps. You want to observe your thoughts, your feelings, and your body language

to make sure that you're present. You want to express thanks and your understanding of what was just shared so that you leave there feeling really confident and grateful for just having that conversation. Before we wrap things up, just a quick reminder again to have you complete that survey we mentioned at the top of the episode. It's at npr.org slash life kits survey. It'll really help us out. Again, that's npr.org slash life kits survey. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes.

I hosted one on how to set boundaries with family members, and we have another one on how to write a letter. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. And if you love Life Kit, and I know you do, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash life kit newsletter. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Claire Marie Schneider. And if you didn't like it, you can email her. Megan Cain is the managing producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Audrey Nguyen, and Janet Lee. Beth Donovan is

the senior editor. Special thanks to Natalie Edwards, who spoke with us about this episode. Our digital editors are Beck Harlan and Wynne Davis. Our intern is David West Jr. I'm Julia Frillon. Thank you so much for listening. Send me your feedback.