Did you receive feedback? Perhaps someone told you something uncomfortable about yourself or your behaviour, and now you don’t quite know what to do with it. You might feel that the feedback was nonsensical. Or perhaps you’d like to forget the whole thing?
The good news is that you don’t have to accept the feedback as is. The bad news is that if you want to be a true professional, you have to receive the feedback, take it seriously and handle it. That’s what makes us excellent experts.
Handling it doesn’t mean that you have to just accept it. Quite the contrary, the point of handling it is to find out which parts of the feedback are truly useful and important and which ones aren’t.
Checklist before handling feedback
Before you handle feedback, make sure that you have all the information. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I understand their point of view? Do I accept that this is what they saw, experienced and thought? Based on that, is it understandable that they gave feedback like this?
- Do I believe that they understand my point of view? Is there something more that they should know and could it change the feedback they’d give? Have we talked about it enough?
- Do I understand the feedback? Is it clear to me what they mean? What the feedback relates to? Do I remember the situation or do I recognise my own behaviour?
- Am I ready to handle the feedback? Should I calm down or talk about my feelings with someone? Am I ready to face this feedback – even if it feels uncomfortable?
If the answer is no, it’s best to go back and ask more questions. If you answer yes, or something like it, to all questions, you can go on.
Is this something I can work on?
The first and most important question is: Should I work on this? Here are some extra questions to consider:
- Is this important for this relationship or the workflow?
- Will I become a better professional or a better person if I improve myself on this front?
- What will happen if I don’t try to work on this?
Next, you should ask yourself: Can I improve at this? Most things can be changed. We can improve almost any facet of ourselves if we want. However, not quite everything is possible. Some things we are born with, and those are very hard or even impossible to change.
Sometimes we have to work on things that feel truly difficult. Sometimes it might be better not to fight your own inclination and instead find an environment where your weaknesses are not such a big deal and your strengths make up for what you lack. It depends on the balance of cost and benefit, that is to say, the price of change.
What is the price of change – and what will happen if you don’t change?
Because change takes time and effort, and we cannot change many things at once, we have to consider carefully what we spend our energy on. Yes, we can learn nearly anything and improve at almost everything. But is this specific thing something that’s worth our while to focus on?
This is rarely something you can decide alone. We may think that the price of change is high and the benefit small. On the other hand, our colleagues might feel that change is absolutely necessary and requires immediate action. Some things might make others’ work more difficult; some are just mild annoyances. We have to find out which one we’re dealing with.
What if we can’t, don’t want to or don’t plan on changing? It’s important to evaluate what’s the price we’ll have to pay if we don’t react to the feedback or if we fail to change the way we plan to. What are the consequences? Are we ready to live with them?
Continuing the feedback discussion
When you’ve analysed the situation, it’s time to continue the discussion with the person who gave you feedback. You can thank them again for the feedback. Make sure that they feel they’ve been heard and see that you’ve truly handled the feedback and taken it seriously. Tell them if you plan on using the feedback and how.
If you believe that working on the issue is difficult for you, explain the situation. Ask for help in prioritising so that you’ll have space for learning. Perhaps you might not be able to work on this thing right now. In that case, you have to agree when you’ll return to it. You might also discuss what will happen if you try to improve on it but don’t succeed.
If you know that changing this thing is nearly impossible or would make you unhappy, you can try to find alternative solutions together. Can you change the circumstances? Can you get help or give the task to someone else? Can you make it up to them some another way? Often problems can be worked around in many ways, and your willingness to look for solutions can already help the person who gave you feedback to look at the issue more favourably.
Ultimately, issues are resolved by talking about them together, taking into account the points of view of both parties and looking for a way forwards. Handling feedback in a professional manner aids in reaching this goal.
TL;DR: You always need to handle feedback, but you don’t always have to act on it
- When your feelings have settled, find out if you have enough information on the feedback you’ve received. Ask more questions if you don’t.
- Consider if you should work on the thing you got feedback on. Can you do it?
- Ask yourself if this is something you should focus on right now. What do your colleagues think?
- Finally, share your conclusions with the person who gave you feedback.