Preparing For Defensiveness In Feedback.
Preparing for defensiveness in feedback.
It’s normal - but you do need a plan.
Why do people get defensive when receiving feedback?
It’s a biological and psychological response to being under ‘threat’.
What can you do about it?
Prepare for it.
Why feedback can feel so high stakes at work.
When getting feedback, here are the ‘threats’ your brain is scanning for:
Your job security.
Your status/job title.
Your financial security.
Your atonomy/flexibility/perks.
Your relationships.
Your reputation.
When you think back to the last time you got feedback …
Did any of these fears creep into your mind while you were politely nodding along?
What happens next is an automatic, physiological, stress response.
If you worry about a threat when you get feedback, it’s reassuring to know it’s a biological response.
When under stress, the part of your brain that project manages how you respond to a ‘threat’ (your amygdala) will typically get you to do one of the following:
Fight = get defensive. This means you’ll spend most of the conversation defending yourself and very little reflecting on what was said.
Freeze = zone out. This means you might feel as though all the words were blurry, as though you were underwater. You won't remember what was said.
Flight = shut down the convo. You’ll have found some way to end the meeting or leave the room.
Fawn = your instinct will be to fast track the feedback to get it over and done with. You’ll be agreeable to move along.
In most of the above, what you recall is very little.
Not only do you not remember what was said, you also have a distorted perception of the intent of the feedback.
When you give feedback, expect people to be defensive.
Instead of worrying people might get defensive, expect it.
Studies have discovered employees are 3.6x more likely to be motivated when they get regular feedback (i.e. weekly/daily vs annually). So it's worth getting your head around it.
Preparing for defensiveness in others.
You want to get to a place with your feedback where it’s so succinct that there’s time for the other person to process.
That processing might be freaking out for a bit (as noted above).
Ideally you want enough time for the freakout plus more to process the feedback with you and reflect.
So, build in a buffer.
Expect people to act a bit odd for a bit, while they get their head around it.
Don’t take it personally - it’s just their brain assessing whether they’re under threat.
People need time to process.
The reality is that most people won’t remember everything you say because their brain will be too busy assessing if this is a threat.
Give the person you’re giving feedback to the gift of a buffer to process, and you’ll see better results.
Five principles for making sense of defensiveness.
You know you shouldn’t take it personally. Here are five principles to help you live that.
Anticipate a poor response.
Because it’s a biological response to stress, give them grace to freak out for a bit. Don’t take it personally. It’s their biology and psychology making sense of the situation.
How someone else behaves is not your responsibility.
How someone else behaves is not yours to own.
Your job is to make sure you are understandable and that they understand.
One way you can help is to make sure your feedback is succinct.
If you need ideas on how to do that, try out our ‘two sentence’ format as a starter.
Make it a two-way converation (not a feedback ‘dump and run’).
The quickest way to fast-track defensiveness is to not let them have a say.
When people have time to share their perspective their ‘it’s not fair’ flag lowers.
Make it fair by giving them time to process and come back to continue the conversation, where relevant.
Remember your KPI isn’t that you have talked. It’s that they’ve understood.
Increase that reality by making sure they get a say.
Talk for 20% and listen/workshop for 80%.
It can be painful listening to someone defend themselves. What’s really happening is that they’re processing. They need a minute to cool their jets.
The more time they have to cool down, the better conversation you’ll have. Show your positive intent by working on your ability to witness someone else’s discomfort.
Your feedback conversation can happen over many convos.
By giving them time to process, you’re helping them make sense of the conversation after you’ve both left the room.
Give them time, and come back to it, so you can both have a productive conversation.
Be explicit about the fact you can continue the conversation. Remember, they might need to check in with their family and friends to bounce around the ideas you’ve shared.
You’d rather someone come back to you after thinking about what you’ve said, than someone who’s just reacting, right?
If you’re the one who gets defensive.
You’re certainly not alone if so. Ideas for you to consider:
Feedback isn’t an order. It’s a request. You get to decide whether you take on the feedback.
Feedback is data. In the delivery, is a message. If you focus on what the person is trying to say, you can figure out later whether you agree.
You never need to agree on the spot. Buy yourself some time if you need a minute to get your head around it. Say you’ll think about it and come back to them. Ask to revisit it again later once you’ve had some time to reflect.
Creating a sentence or mantra you can say to yourself when you’re in that zone can be useful. Here’s an example: ‘figure out what the message is, first’.
Are you someone who’d like to get better at getting feedback?
If you like the idea of getting better at this with your team, you might be interested in bringing our workshop on this topic to your workplace. In this workshop, we step through a framework to give feedback and talk about defensiveness being very normal.
If you are a reflective thinker who prefers to read through ideas, you might enjoy our eBook on Giving & Recieving Feedback. It covers everything you need to know about feedback.
Giving & Receiving Feedback Programme.
For leaders and individual contributors.