The GLAD For Feedback Formula

Posted on September 07, 2013 by Adonica Sweet, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

THE “GLAD FOR FEEDBACK” FORMULA

Have you avoided the conversation where you need to give feedback to another person and it is feedback that could be difficult to hear? Chances are, you have. I know I have. Have you felt that cringe when someone says they have some feedback for you? Again, chances are, you have and yes, me too. Do you want to grow and learn? I bet you do! I definitely do. One of the best ways to grow and learn is to be given feedback. This gives us the opportunity to become aware of our blind spots and make adjustments to our behaviour, if we choose. I am going to share with you my “GLAD for Feedback” formula, but first, a story.

I find it funny how life just hands us lessons to really drive home a point. When I decided to write an article on feedback, I was in the midst of going through a ton of changes in my awareness of self and my own development. I had made it clear to my Supervisor years ago that I was open to hearing feedback because I wanted to grow and learn. Over the years I have been given difficult feedback from various sources. Many of you are probably thinking back to your own experiences. Good, stay with that a moment before I share one of my stories.

Not so long ago, I was with my team and we were all giving the gift of information to our supervisors. We had worked together to come up with a list of what we expected from our supervisors and it was the time to deliver the message. It was my turn, I had thought about what I was going to say, we were running out of time and it just didn’t come out quite the way I wanted. Looking back, I felt a bit uncomfortable but just couldn’t put my finger on it. Everyone had their chance and the meeting ended. Whew! Glad that’s over with… and back to work I went.

Toward the end of the day, I received a pop-up, the three of us [Supervisors] want to meet with you at 4pm to give you some feedback. You know that cringe I mentioned earlier? I felt it. I forget what time it was, I think it was only 3-3:30 but it felt like hours that I would have to wait with this hanging over my head. “Being called to the boss’s office…” What feelings do you have around that? Well, I respect my supervisors tons and yep, I felt what you are probably thinking right now. “Oh no, what did I do? Was it that meeting? I know I’m not going to get fired but ugh! I don’t know. Did I look really stupid? How did they feel? Did I hurt them in some way? Did I let down my team? Are they mad? Etc. Etc. Etc.” I had a big gulp in my throat that I couldn’t swallow. All the time my mind was racing, I kept a smile on my face and continued to serve the clients in front of me.

4 o’clock, OK, let’s get this done. I went to her office, the others joined. They were all closer to the door than I was, I was trapped. Seriously that was the set up, however, I will re-emphasize, I have tons of respect for all my supervisors (I will add I REALLY like all of them, they truly are awesome) and I wasn’t afraid of them, yet I found myself shaking. Now for the feedback, one of them said that during the time when I was speaking in the meeting, they had felt uncomfortable but couldn’t put their finger on it (funny I had felt the same way – hmmm, some congruence here and it didn’t make me feel any better). Then when they had all debriefed about the meeting and discussed my contribution, they realized they all felt the same way and the word they used was… condescending. Ugh!

My heart sank, they felt like I was being condescending toward them. My amygdale brain kicked in and in a fraction of a second, my mind raced again thinking, “I am sooo sorry. Did I really do that? How could I? That wasn’t my intention, I wanted them to feel good, not bad. It was supposed to be inspiring and uplifting, not condescending? OK, slow down, what happened? What could have I done differently? Oh I know.” Then I spoke, “I am so sorry, that was not my intention.” They responded and said they knew that about me and wanted to give me the feedback because they knew I would want it (Did I really want this?). I explained to them what I would have done differently and right away they said, yes, that felt a lot better to them.

I was still shaking, and I shared that with them. They asked what they could have done differently to make hearing the feedback easier. I replied that there was nothing. One of them mentioned the setup of the area with me being furthest away from the door and we joked about that. To this day, I still have not come up with anything other than a few minor things that I will address in my next article. It was my own response. When I left, my knees were still shaking. I thought about the information I had just received and decided there was some validity to it since all three of them felt the same way. I learned something about myself and identified ways I can prevent that from happening again.

So why is it so difficult for us to receive feedback? It could be because the person giving the feedback is ineffective at providing it. In my example, this certainly was not the case. I’ll write about how to provide effective feedback in my next article and share what my supervisors did and what they could have done differently. For the purpose of this article, let’s assume the person is effective at providing feedback.

I am going to jump out on a limb and make a bold statement. We actually do not have difficulty receiving feedback MOST of the time. We receive feedback from a multitude of sources. Our body tells us we are tired; we shiver. Our taste buds tell us that food was delicious. We try a new soil mixture in our garden, the plants grow or they don’t. We stay out in the sun too long, we get burned (OK maybe that one is difficult to receive/put up with). We hear from a friend about how they really liked the card we sent. You see what I mean? Looking at feedback in this way, what is feedback?

Here is the premise of the article: Feedback, no matter where it comes from, is data or information. What we choose to do with it is up to us. How would your life change if you accepted ALL feedback simply as data with the freedom to choose what you want to do with it?

Babies give mothers feedback by crying and yet most mothers don’t take insult to it. It is taken as information “Oh! Baby is crying! They are hungry, I may need to adjust my feeding times.” Adjust feeding times, baby cries less, done. The feedback provided resulted in a change and improvements to the situation for baby and all parties within earshot of baby.

To answer my question, ‘why is it so difficult for us to receive feedback?’, I feel it is because we let our thinking get in the way. This is usually due to past experiences. When we do this, our thinking affects our emotions and these emotions drive our behaviours. The result can be a behaviour that we are ashamed of. Then the cycle of negative thinking begins…I dislike what I did…I feel stupid…others think I’m stupid…I’m not any good at my job (or whatever)…I could get fired…I dislike feedback because I feel so bad afterwards…you know how your pattern goes…you read what my pattern of thinking was above…STOP! What is feedback? It is data and we choose what to do with it. How can we disconnect the feelings we attach to it? In my story, did you catch when I stopped my pattern? What did I do? I said to myself “Slow down, what happened?”. I stopped thinking in the future and past tense, I got out of my emotional head and accepted the feedback as information. Then I decided to learn from it.

Here are some tips to remember when receiving feedback. I call it my “Be GLAD for Feedback”.

1. Grasp the present. Slow down and catch yourself in your pattern of racing thoughts.
2. Look for the facts. Let go of the emotion, stick with facts. Start with “What happened?” and “Where is the giver of the feedback coming from?”
3. Accept what has just been said as information. You could ask “What are my options of what to do with this information?” or “What is the lesson I may want/need to learn here?” What the other person is sharing is information experienced through their personal filters. Whether it is delivered in an effective way or not, you may want to learn something from it, or not. In my example, what they experienced was a feeling. Was I actually being condescending? That was not my intention. However, they all felt that way so there was something in how I was delivering that message that was not meeting my intention, my unintended impact was that I came across as condescending.
4. Decide what to do with the information. In my case, I decided to take it as a learning experience to grow from. My lesson was in the way I deliver my messages, I know now how important it is for me to not allow myself to feel rushed and skip important steps like setting the context of my message.

With this formula, I believe receiving feedback will become easier the more we practice it. At least that’s true for me. Years ago, I would give a blank look and later would shed a few tears. I have also found it helpful for processing feedback when it comes from a not-so-effective source.
Watch for my next article on how to give effective feedback. Learn what my supervisors did that worked well for me.

By Adonica Sweet CEC, 2013