Feedback Treatment

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at a Board of Health hearing, listening to a detailed description of the advanced septic system proposed for the house being built across the street.

The technicalities were way beyond my grasp, but I got the gist of it—waste would be collected, aerated and filtered through a series of membranes and holding tanks until what was left was potable.

I found the idea of being able to transform discarded matter into something useful intriguing and tried to think of a way I could use it as an analogy in my own area of expertise.

Then I remembered what I learned about feedback from Charlie and Edie Seashore.

Feedback is simply information, and in spite of what we may sometimes think, it’s neither negative nor positive.

Like input to the system discussed by the Board of Health, it can be processed through a series of mental “membranes” to eliminate the garbage and refine what has potential for use.

So the next time you have a 360 evaluation or annual review, or a coworker or spouse lobs an uninvited observation, suggestion or assessment of your character your way, remember these two principles: one, it’s not all about you, and two, you can choose what to do with it.

But if we don’t take the time to treat it, and especially if we make value judgments about it, good or bad, we give up our power to choose how we’re going to utilize it.

Principle One: Feedback Always Reveals Information About the Giver

Like most wives, I give my husband a lot of feedback, like when he comes back from the grocery store and I say things such as, “Broccoli wasn’t on the list,” or “Why’d you buy tomatoes?  We already have six cans in the pantry?”

It has become increasingly obvious to me that this feedback says very little about my husband’s grocery shopping abilities and speak volumes about my need to micromanage the contents of our refrigerator, food costs, daily menus and dietary intake.

And to think I ask him to do the shopping to take something off my plate!

If I stop to think about what my comments are saying about me, the giver of feedback, new possibilities emerge—I could keep my mouth shut and change the menu, or I could hold up the broccoli and say, “Mmm—looks nice and fresh.”

It’s helpful when we’re on the receiving end of feedback to remember that what is being said always tells us something about the source, and if we do nothing more that make space to consider that it isn’t all about us, it can change our lives.

Even a little chink in our armor of automatic defensiveness can offer the chance to discover more about the person we perceive in that moment as “coming at us.”

When I’m helping clients prepare for performance reviews, I suggest they “play reporter.” Be curious, I tell them—when someone offers feedback that feels critical, say something neutral, like “How interesting,” or “Tell me more.” Seize the opportunity to learn more about your boss and what he or she cares about.

Yet even as I say this, I know that it is not easy to do. Often I have kicked myself afterward for missing an opportunity for a deeper level of communication and connection.

Principle Two: Feedback Is Ultimately Controlled by the Receiver

Many years ago I was enthusiastically telling a new client how he could revitalize his professional life, and I got so caught up in my plan that all of a sudden he looked at me with panic in his eyes and exclaimed, “Wow, you’re intense!”

It took me several days to realize that if I had used his comment as an opportunity to explore how he was feeling I would have seen that he was overwhelmed and could have slowed things down and reassured him that we’d take it a step at time.

I now credit this incident with helping me be more attuned to where my clients are than where I want to take them.

Notice how, as the receiver of feedback, I was in complete charge of what I did with it, both in the beginning when I turned it on myself and took the blame for being a flawed counselor, and later when I put it to productive use for my own professional development.

Applying the Seashores’ teaching to situations like this allows us to mull over the value of the feedback we give or receive at our own pace and respond from a wider range of choices.

In other words, to run it through an internal “information treatment plant” until we get to what’s clean, pure and useful for our own growth.

So the next time you have a 360 evaluation or annual review, or a coworker or spouse lobs an uninvited observation, suggestion or assessment of your character your way, remember these two principles: one, it’s not all about you, and two, you can choose what to do with it.