Hearing, Processing, and Acting on Feedback
We all make mistakes or could do our jobs better on any given day. We’re flawed, but growing humans. We’re also encouraged to share feedback constantly with our peers, partners, managers, and leaders. We’re given frameworks, training, and more about how to provide effective, actionable feedback. However, I’ve generally found that we don’t spend as much time on how to really hear feedback, process it effectively, and then act on it over time.
Feedback is a gift!
Yes… but what do I do with this feedback? Do I have to listen to it? Is this an order, is it a suggestion, is this critical to my performance and overall success?
Hearing Feedback
You’re going to be getting feedback about your work and about your behaviors on a daily basis. I don’t think it’s entirely natural to feel excited and happy when someone says something you made or did could be better. Eventually it feels great, you’re grateful someone took the time, care and energy to help you grow, but in the moment emotions kick in (in my experience). You have to acknowledge that for yourself, to know it’s always coming and be mentally prepared (and agile) to hear it.
A few of the ways I’ve worked to improve this for myself over my career include:
Add visible reminders
I keep a post it on my main computer monitor reminding me to Listen. (Mine actually says “Listen, stupid!” because a little negative personal reinforcement works for my millennial brain.)
Listen so you can repeat the feedback in your own words
My natural bias is to hear the negative and start to form a response to justify my decisions or behaviors. However, I’ve found that trying to listen to what I’m being told so I can repeat it back in my own words really helps me focus on the content rather than the emotion of the feedback.
Ask for the feedback directly
If you’re proactively asking others to give you feedback, either in writing or to your face, you’ll be more mentally prepared to listen to it. This removes the emotion of surprise and allows you to hear what you need to hear.
Processing Feedback
Now that you’ve heard the feedback, it’s time to process and understand it. In the moment this can look like discussing the feedback live with the person providing it, but it can also be thanking them and putting it out of your mind for a bit.
When feedback triggers strong emotions, especially negative (feel the heat in your face and chest) the very best advice is to sleep on it. Over and over again I’ve mistakenly tried to immediately start responding in the height of emotions, to both process and act at once, and it leads to over-corrections. Time heals all wounds is a common phrase for a reason.
Here are a few things to try improving how you process feedback:
Sleep on it
Walk away, live your life, try to put the emotion aside so you can reground in the full picture of your life. Does this impact your overall career? Does this effect who you are as a person?
Put the feedback in the context of your overall growth (keep a feedback diary)
For years now I’ve kept a feedback diary for anything positive, negative, or otherwise thought-provoking. I have a private Paper doc that I keep bookmarked in my browser. Every so often I add new feedback (good and bad), along with reflecting on my growth. This keeps me grounded in the context of the overall good I do, where I’ve continued to struggle, and let’s me focus my energy on why I may be getting feedback in the first place.
Clarify the feedback in your own mind or directly with the provider
As you’ve heard the feedback, you’ll likely have questions to clarify what it really means. Great feedback can be delivered with a clear expected outcome, but often it’s not. In my mind a use a bit of a feedback key to shape what the outcome should be: Action is required, I should consider it, Learn from it, or Lean in with the provider or others to get coaching (see below). You can ask the feedback giver what they think, or work with a manager/mentor to make sense of the feedback as well.
Acting on Feedback
Now that you’ve heard the feedback, know what it really means in context with clear expectations, you can decide how to act. The best advice I’ve always turned to for action is to bite off small pieces. Getting to tactical, small, achievable milestones gives you a kick-start on finding the right long term plans.
For example you might not know what to make of feedback like “you need to work on how you’re presenting, at the moment your point of view isn’t landing clearly with leadership.”
Listen:
I hear… that the story I just told didn’t land with my audience.
I hear… the way I’m communicating to more senior people may be focused on the wrong message elements
I hear… maybe the way I’m talking isn’t working. Possibly saying too much? Possibly fumbling my words? Possibly choosing the wrong things to focus on?
Process:
I can… understand this is important feedback. Growing my influence with leaders is a growth goal and something I’ve received feedback on several times.
I can… ask senior leader [XYZ] what resonated, what needed work, etc with my last talk to proactively collect more clarity.
I can… come back to this in a few days when I’ve had some time to think and let clarifying questions get answers.
Action:
I will… ensure my presentations are tied back to key strategy language and metrics based on clarity from leadership about what was missing. In my next template I’ll add these metrics in 2 key places.
I will… practice my storytelling with [XYZ] mentor by setting up 30m with a few days of time to make adjustments to my presentation.
I will… ask again after my next presentation if the content and story was more effective.
There are a lot of other methods to build long term growth plans, to get training, mentorship, and so on. This is best discussed with a direct manager who is best suited to support your growth. Hold your manager accountable to helping you process feedback and be an accountability partner in your actions and follow through.
