Receiving Feedback Without Losing Your Cool
Dinner that night was pork tenderloin with tarragon mushroom sauce, accompanied by roasted acorn squash. I set a plate down in front of my son, sat down, and braced myself.
“Mom, this is gross.”
And with that, he was up and out of his seat, rejecting the meal I’d made for him. At fourteen, he seems just as picky as he was at four. I sighed and took some deep breaths in and out, trying to manage my response. It turns out, a fourteen-year-old with strong opinions about dinner makes an excellent teacher when it comes to learning how to respond to negative feedback.
Most people struggle with receiving negative feedback, for these reasons:
There’s an absence of caring from the person giving the feedback. This is often referred to as a lack of “psychological safety.” When we are given feedback without the sense that the other person is sharing it because they really care about us, it begins to feel unsafe. We have a hard time hearing the feedback and tend to respond defensively. For example, “Mom, this is gross and you shouldn’t ever cook it” versus “Mom, I know you work hard to make us dinner, and I appreciate it. I would prefer that you don’t make pork tenderloin.”
The feedback feels personal. Sometimes the person giving feedback makes general statements that feel personal, rather than specific ones about the behavior they want to see change. For example, “You’re a bad cook,” versus “I don’t like it when you cook pork tenderloin.”
It’s phrased in negative terms. Often feedback is phrased in terms of what you shouldn’t do, but doesn’t tell you what you should do. It can be hard to put that feedback into action. For example, “You shouldn’t ever cook pork tenderloin.” When you still have to come up with something for dinner every night, it’s hard to know what to do with that feedback.
So where does this leave us? Do we ignore all negative feedback and carry on without it?
No, that would be problematic. If we don’t receive any constructive feedback, we miss critical inputs about the world around us. We don’t have the opportunity to learn and grow from it. Our relationships stagnate and sometimes end.
Instead of ignoring feedback that feels uncaring, personal, or put in negative terms, we can reframe it, take the helpful parts of it, and let the rest go.
This is how I’ve navigated negative feedback in the workplace. And also, how I’ve gotten through endless meal complaints from my kids. 😊
Help them reframe it. Most people don’t give feedback just to hurt your feelings. They just don’t know how to do it in a caring, constructive way. You can help them reframe the feedback by asking questions. When I hear “Mom this is gross,” I can respond with questions like “Why are you sharing this feedback?” or “What would you like to see happen?” or “How can you share this with me in a caring way?”
Recognize that the feedback says a lot about them. At the most basic level, feedback gives you information about the other person’s preferences. Their likes and dislikes. For example, the pork and squash meal that I cooked wasn’t empirically bad. It was healthy, flavorful and cooked perfectly. It’s easy to see in this example that my son is simply sharing his tastes, and the feedback doesn’t have anything to do with my cooking skills. However, in many cases, it’s hard to see that the feedback is mostly telling you information about that other person’s preferences. When you remember this, it’s easier to not take it personally.
Let go of the rest. We don’t have to take every piece of feedback we receive to heart. It’s important to listen, consider, and then use our own internal compass to determine what’s best. For example, I may take pork tenderloin off the menu for a while, but I’m not going to revert to cooking only hamburgers and pizza to appease my kids. I know that’s not good for any of us.
What areas of your life do you struggle to receive feedback in? Which of these strategies would you benefit from trying at work or at home?
