Avoiding feedback.
How other people respond to feedback is not yours to anticipate, manage or control.
Why do nearly half of leaders avoid feedback?
Usually because they want to avoid upsetting an employee they respect.
Here’s the thing: how other people respond to feedback is not yours to anticipate, manage or control.
What is within your control is your message, delivery and capacity to hear different perspectives.
We can do that by using feedback that gives ample time for someone to go into their defensive zone, process and eventually, come back for air.
Short on time? Check out our Guide to Giving Feedback.
"Eugh, I don’t want to but I need to", I thought before the meeting.
I had to give someone feedback.
The actual content wasn’t long or arduous. It was the emotional upheaval around it that was stressing me out.
Why did it seem so hard?
I didn’t want them to be upset or change things that were working well. And I didn’t know how not to do that.
Turns out, I was worrying about the wrong thing.
I was trying to project manage their experience.
But how another adult behaves at work wasn’t mine to project manage, mitigate or control.
The only thing that was mine to control was my message, delivery and capacity to listen to their experience.
The actual conversation wasn’t long at all. But for me, it was a real turning point as I realised my ‘to do’ list before giving feedback was actually quite straightforward: what I could control.
We all know we perform better with feedback.
One Gallup study discovered people are 3.6 times more likely to produce high results when their leader provides daily feedback (instead of annually).
Yet it’s no secret leaders find feedback tricky.
Another study discovered 44% of people leaders found giving feedback was stressful; 37% avoided giving praise and 21% admitted they avoid constructive feedback.
Why is feedback so tough for smart people?
Leaders worry about ruining a good thing.
So, they don’t want to risk pointing out what isn’t working. It sounds like this:
"Kauri is doing a great job, but gets cranky with customers. It’s not a big deal…"
"Sonita is great at project management but the exec doesn’t get what they need. It’s fine because I just …"
"Sally is a great person but doesn’t take on what I’m saying. It’s hard, but …"
In these above scenarios, only one person is getting their needs met: the employee. In a productive relationship, both people get their needs met.
Let’s look at some real life examples.
In my Giving & Receiving Feedback workshops, when I ask leaders what stops them from giving feedback, they say:
"I worry how the other person will respond."
"They’re usually quite defensive."
"It’s annoying but it’s not a big deal."
"Quite a bit of time has passed. It seems too late?"
"I don’t get the vibe they are able to take on feedback without crumbling."
What they’re experiencing is ‘loss aversion’: fear of what we can lose, instead of what we can gain.
On paper they don’t seem big.
But over time, that can cause bigger problems. Like, your reputation for what standards come out of your desk and small holes become bigger when you get busier and aren’t around to fill the gaps so much.
We need to fill these gaps in advance so we can get on with bigger things. And/or, reap the benefits of being a boss: more time to think strategically, and less time putting out fires.
The turning point for feedback.
When you worry about how your team member sees you, you centre yourself instead of the person you’re giving feedback to. You’re more concerned about what to do with how they react than how they receive the message.
Instead of worrying about things outside our control, we can remember two things:
It is not your responsibility to manage or control how someone responds or behaves. That’s their job.
It is your responsibility to make sure your communication is clear, succinct and positive. It’s the only thing you can control.
That doesn’t mean you’re giving yourself a free pass to say whatever you like. What it means is that you focus on what is yours to own: your message, delivery and enough space to hear their response.
How other people respond is their job.
Your job is to:
Reflect on your intent to make sure it's positive.
Prepare your communication to make sure it's clear and centering an observation (not an accusation).
Make sure you’re speaking from a place of kindness.
When we focus on this checklist, focusing on what is ours to own becomes easier.
Having the conversation and what to say.
At Happiness Concierge we use this feedback framework to give feedback in our workshops:
Observation - You share an observation, not an accusation.
Impact - You share the impact or flow on effect.
Listen - Then you make space for the other person to share their experience.
Agree - And you always leave aligned on what you can both agree on.
Here’s the framing:
I’ve noticed… you share your observation.
The impact is… you share the flow on effect.
What was your experience? You stop talking and start listening to get their view.
What next? You both make a plan forward.
Here are some examples:
"I’ve noticed you seem a bit checked out. Checking in, is everything okay?
[You stop talking and start listening here].
I experience that myself from time to time. Can we agree in front of the CEO we keep it together, and debrief afterwards?"
"As a result of changes in the business, we need to do things differently. I want to share the thinking behind it. The reality is things outside of our control change around us. I acknowledge it can throw a cat in the mix. The impact of this will be that some of the ways we work will change. Love to hear your thoughts on this.
[You stop talking and listen here].
Would anything get in the way of you being able to take this on? If so, what would that be?"
"Here’s what I’m observing: we can’t seem to agree. I imagine it’s frustrating for you too? I’m concerned the project will stall if we don’t find a way forward. Do you agree?
[You stop talking and listen here].
Given we both see things the same, what can we do about it? I’m wondering … is there a way for everyone to get what they need?"
When in doubt, try the helium balloon approach.
One technique I teach in my Giving & Receiving Feedback workshops is imagining the person you are giving feedback to as instantly going into their stress zone.
In this zone, I invite leaders to imagine this person has had a helium balloon creep into the room, alongside them. This balloon is a symbol for their stress zone. The balloon needs time to deflate before it can stop getting in the way of everything.
Your job as a boss, or anyone giving feedback, is giving that person enough time to deflate their stress, frustration or defensiveness out, before you can get to the real juice: the actual feedback.
That might take a few moments or it might take longer. But acknowledging, like you, they might need a minute, or a few days, to process what you are saying helps us be patient and kind in our delivery.
Here’s an example of this in action.
A leader in one of my workshops shared that they had spent a good few hours with an underperforming team member.
Prior, they prepared notes. In the conversation, they gave feedback, then worked with the person to help them figure out what next.
It was tough going for both of them.
But this boss, to their credit, had decided in advance they were going to get a solution and that that could only happen if the person was onboard. So how long it took was kind of irrelevant. Because the focus was on how both people could get what they wanted.
At the end of it, they both had a plan to move forward.
Was it fun? I can’t imagine it was for either of them. But was it productive? Because the boss had made the time and decided in advance they were going to find a solution: yes.
The way forward is by centering the work, and owning what is not yours to own.
I’ve had people cry, slam doors, stop talking to me, ramble nonsense, never speak to me again and there was the time when someone passed out.
And I could make that mean all sorts of things about me.
But what I’ve learned to do over the years, by training my brain to think differently, is to create a checklist to help me process how others behave. This helps my brain see it as an observation as something happening around me, not something to me, or for me to own.
When feedback gets a strong response I think:
It isn’t personal, it’s their process. It helps me tailor my response in future.
I don’t have to agree with their perspective, but I do promise to acknowledge it.
It’s okay if we see things differently. We probably do if we’re having this conversation.
Most people will be defensive because they are in their stress zone. It’s not personal, they’re just processing new information.
Their response, like my feedback, will never arrive in ‘perfect form’. If I make sure I have the capacity to hear their reality, I will probably get some good feedback myself.
This conversation doesn’t need to be ‘finished’ just because I’ve decided to start it. It can happen over multiple conversations but I do need to start it.
Your character is a reflection of what standards you accept.
If you are like me, always evolving, your standards will grow. That’s a good thing. What is tricky for some leaders, is communicating those expectations.
There’s a way to do this without getting too lost in worrying about things outside of your control. And that's by finding a way to have a conversation about small things, to avoid bigger ones in future.
That’s the thing we often forget in feedback conversations: there’s two of us in it.
It’s not about getting the other person to necessarily agree with you. It’s about sharing your observations and making space to hear how they see things.
Maybe they agree with you. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they have other things to get off their chest.
That’s cool. If you’ve made the space to hear their reality, they can react any way they like.