Thoughtful feedback helps you grow both personally and professionally. Accurate feedback helps you with your lifelong career development, too. It’s a gift that people who care about your personal and professional success can provide for you. But, they’ll only provide feedback if you are approachable and allow them to feel comfortable when giving you the feedback. In the case of your direct manager, your defensiveness is even sadder—and potentially a problem. This is the person from whom you need to welcome feedback. It’s difficult enough to be a manager who is in a position wherein he or she must provide feedback—and it’s already an uncomfortable role for many because they are untrained and ill-prepared. You would do well not to make the situation even more difficult for your manager by exhibiting defensive or childish behavior in response to their legitimate efforts to give you developmental feedback. Here are 10 steps you need to take to receive feedback with grace and dignity.
Control Your Defensiveness
Fear of hurting you or having to deal with defensive or justifying behavior makes people hesitant to give feedback to someone else. If you can create an aura of approachability, people are more likely to return with more feedback. Defensiveness, anger, justifying, and excuse-making will ensure that coworkers and bosses are not comfortable giving you feedback.
Listen to Understand
Practice all of the skills of an effective listener, including using body language and facial expressions that encourage the other person to talk.
Try to Suspend Judgment
After all, in learning the views of the feedback provider, you learn about yourself and how your actions are interpreted and perceived in the world. Noted consultant and author, Tom Peters, in a well-known quote, said, “Perception is all there is.”
Summarize and Reflect on What You Heard
Your feedback provider will appreciate that you are really hearing what they are saying. Rather than using the little voice in your head to argue, deny, or formulate your response while they are speaking, focus on making sure that you understand the point of view you are receiving. You are also determining the validity of what you are really hearing.
Ask Questions to Clarify
Focus on questions to make sure that you understand the feedback. Once again, focus on understanding the feedback you are receiving, not on your next response. Your most appropriate response will frequently be a simple “thank you for letting me know.”
Ask for Examples
Ask for these examples and stories so you know that you share meaning with the person providing feedback. When and where or under what circumstances did they perceive the actions about which they are providing feedback.
Keep Things in Perspective
Just because a person gives you feedback, doesn’t mean that their perception is right or even widely shared by other coworkers and bosses. Remember that they see your actions or hear your words and interpret them through their own perceptual screen and life experiences.
Be Approachable
People avoid giving feedback to those who are grumpy and dismissive. Your openness to feedback is evident through your body language, facial expressions, and welcoming manner. You can also request feedback verbally asking questions such as, “John, how did I do on that presentation? Was I clear?”
Check With Others
If only one person believes what you heard in the feedback about you, it may be just about him or her and their perceptions, not about you. For example, say, “Mary, Thomas told me that he perceived me as unwilling to engage in a discussion about the recommendations I made in our meeting. Did you share this perception? Or, depending on the openness of your workplace culture, “Mary, I received feedback that I was defensive about my recommendations during our meeting. What did you think?”
Decide on the Reliability of the Feedback
Remember, only you have the right and the ability to decide what to do with the feedback you have received. It is up to you to check it out with others, seek out examples, and then, decide if the feedback is worth doing something about.
Other Tips for Gracefully Receiving Feedback
The following are additional overall communication tips about how to receive feedback with grace and dignity.
