Feedback is a gift?
Early in my career I internalized this idea that “feedback is a gift.” And I think there’s no question that highly functional teams utilize feedback in various forms as a powerful tool. But like any tool, it can be misused. And I’ve noticed within myself - along with hundreds of leaders that we’ve worked with – how the act of feedback can become performative or even harmful.
Here’s what we share with the leaders at the start of our multi-day Authentic Leadership Intensives. During our time together they will be asked to get deeply reflective, share really honest things with each other about their experiences, and even take turns leading a fictional team in a parallel universe that our actors will bring to life for them. But they won’t get feedback. They won’t be told they are doing anything right or wrong, and they won’t hear the words “glow & grow” or “strength & area of growth.” What they WILL hear is how other people are experiencing them. They will get a window into how they are experienced through the eyes of others.
I believe that’s the true gift of “feedback.” It helps us learn about someone else, and even understand how they experience us. I think the most powerful feedback is delivered in that spirit. “Hey, here’s a window into me and how I experience you.”
The problem with offering labels like “strength,” “area of growth,” “glow” or “grow” is that they imply that I have a window into some objective truth about you or your performance that you don’t have. SOMETIMES, that might be true. “Your numbers are wrong there” or “your report came in three days after the deadline” are just objective facts being reflected back to us. But often, “feedback” might be a window into someone’s valid but subjective opinion or experience. In that case, we may be learning something important about ourselves, but we are certainly learning something important about them. And if we embrace that, then we can see “feedback” for what it is and receive it less defensively and with more curiosity.
But that’s hard to do. On a lot of teams, simply hearing the words “I have feedback for you” sends someone into a performative state. They know their job is now to be receptive to that feedback. Maybe they reach for a pen or their laptop to take notes – meaning – this will be a one-way conversation where one person plays the role of the “feedback giver” and the other one plays the role of the (in-some-way-deficient) receiver. Often, you can see leaders straighten up or otherwise physically prepare themselves to hear something that may be emotionally hard to hear, but they feel compelled to pretend like they are instantly grateful to be told. And instead of two people learning about each other and developing deeper connections, a not fully honest conversation ensues in which one person shares their subjective experience of the other.
In a truly honest conversation, people might share “I struggle with it when you do X,” or “I feel anxious and hijacked when you do Y.” In an honest and curious conversation it might also sound like: “what’s actually happening for you when you do that thing?” But when we default to a traditional feedback conversation, that might become: “You have X area of growth,” or “you should do Y differently.” And if the person giving the feedback is in a position of power and is able to present their opinion with a level of authority, it might be even more clear that the “feedback” is not to be met with curiosity but with immediate acceptance. And that might be the goal – but it’s certainly not going to be a helpful path to having the most honest conversation.
What I believe is that when we can steer clear of those kinds of “feedback” conversations, we can have conversations that are actually MORE honest and where both people have the opportunity to grow in profound ways. The choice is not between giving “feedback” or keeping our experiences to ourselves. I think there’s a choice between having a one-way conversion with a power dynamic or choosing to have a truly vulnerable two-way conversation in which both people are learning. And those conversations will not only involve more growth, but more healing - for both people.
