How to Master Yourself and Win at Receiving Feedback
We are often our own worst enemy when receiving feedback
A common fallacy is that humans are logical beings. Rather on the contrary our minds work in mysterious and irrational ways, in many cases human nature works against us.
Similar to giving feedback, receiving feedback effectively is often a place where we struggle. If you’re anything like me, receiving feedback can be uncomfortable and often emotional, even with the best intentions for personal growth it can still be hard to stay objective and keep your cool. Unfortunately for us, that’s just human nature — we are often our own worst enemies.
This inner struggle is real, we are in some ways fighting a battle within ourselves against our irrational behaviours, counterintuitive to what we are trying to achieve — what can we do about it? — I went looking for answers and I found them in the world of behavioural psychology.
The Feedback Staircase
Feedback can be uncomfortable at the best of times. When we receive feedback, particularly constructive feedback, often we take it personally — feel the need to defend ourselves or justify our actions. All these reactions are completely normal and simply part of the feedback process.
One framework I’ve found helpful in explaining this is the Feedback Staircase. The staircase explains five ‘steps’ or emotions that we all naturally feel when receiving feedback — Deny, Defend, Explain, Understand and Change.
Feedback staircase with an added sixth step — “Remain”I have added a sixth step which is to Remain.
A common anti-pattern I see is treating feedback as fact or something that must be actioned — this is not true, feedback is simply information, a data point, another perspective — none of which makes it fact.
At times it may not make any sense to take any action at all. Maybe you made a deliberate decision to do something despite knowing that you were going to receive such feedback — or maybe you got feedback from more people who said the exact opposite. Whatever the reason, feedback doesn’t need to always result in a change.
The Feedback Staircase is a great framework to help frame the emotions you experience when receiving feedback. The idea is to identify where you might stand at any given moment whilst receiving feedback and try to consciously move yourself further up the staircase.
If you receive feedback and are currently trying to rationalise your behaviour, you are likely sitting in the explain step — “Yes, but….” — or perhaps you are in the Deny step — “it didn’t happen like that”. As you move up the staircase the barrier to understanding and change is less. In other words, trying to explain your actions is much closer to understanding than if you flat out denied the feedback.
Knowing where you are on the staircase will help you identify your reactions and whether you are moving towards (Understand/Change/Remain) or away (Deny/Defend/Explain) from change.
The Feedback Staircase however is just a tool for framing the emotions we go through, it doesn’t answer the question as to why we go through such emotions in the Feedback Staircase in the first place? — Why do we try to Deny, Defend and Explain ourselves when we receive feedback?
Human nature and why the Feedback Staircase exists?
I believe a common fallacy is that humans are logical beings. Rather on the contrary, our minds work in mysterious and irrational ways, in many cases human nature works against us.
I found the answer to this in a phenomenon called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a form of cognitive bias where our minds get stressed when presented with information that does not conform with our current point of view.
When our bodies get stressed we go into fight-or-flight mode — yes we go all survival when we hear things we don’t agree with. When this happens our bodies want to reduce the mental stress, in doing so our minds might simply reject the information or try to justify your actions — ever had someone get angry, attack you perhaps, when you mentioned something which they didn’t agree with? That’s cognitive dissonance — stress!
In general we will try to reduce this mental stress — cognitive dissonance — in one of four ways.
1. Change your behaviour to conform — “Thanks for the feedback, I’m going to take it on board and do it differently next time.”
2. Alter the perception of the conflicting information — “Yes, but that was a one-time thing.”
3. Justify your behaviour by adding a new belief — “That’s not what everyone else thought.”
4. Ignore or deny the conflicting information — “I don’t believe you, you don’t know what you are talking about.”
Feedback Staircase explained through Cognitive DissonanceThe simply fact that the feedback we are receiving doesn’t align to our current view of the world is the reason why the Feedback Staircase exists — the cognitive dissonance caused by this misalignment leads our minds to reduce our stress levels and thus resulting in either denying, defending, explaining or understanding the feedback.
Deny = 4. Ignore or deny the conflicting information
Defend = 3. Justify your behaviour by adding a new belief
Explain = 2. Alter the perception of the conflicting information
Understand/Change = 1. Change the behaviour to conform
Although completely normal and part of human nature, when we experience high levels of cognitive dissonance which result in denying, defending or trying to explain ourselves we become our own barrier to change and growth.
How to win the war
What I’ve found is that you have an advantage now simply through understanding why you react that way. I’ve found it liberating because I’ve managed to quickly identify when I feel cognitive dissonance taking over and to quickly remind myself that it is exactly that — dissonance — not reality.
Beyond simply recognising our reactions for what they are, I’ve found a number of strategies that also help to limit cognitive dissonance and stay objective when receiving feedback.
Tip #1: Attempt to hold both views in your mind at the same time.
Walk into receiving feedback knowing that it may not conform with your current view of the world — and that’s ok. Listen to the feedback and try to hold both points of view in your mind at the same time, don’t react, don’t do anything with them, just hold them for a period of time. Such a pause will help allow the initial onslaught of stress and emotions to dissipate, at which point you may now be ready to better process the feedback.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” — Viktor E. Frankl
Tip #2: Embrace discomfort.
Understand that your reaction, regardless of what it is, is completely normal — everyone feels a little uncomfortable and stressed when receiving feedback.
Remind yourself that it’s ok to be emotional, that you’re going to feel uncomfortable, and a little stressed, but that’s all part of the process. Change doesn’t happen easily it requires stepping outside your comfort zone. Embrace the discomfort of receiving feedback and holding two conflicting pieces of information at the same time is the only way to grow — I often find comfort in knowing that by being uncomfortable I am helping to minimise cognitive dissonance and ultimately allow myself to properly process feedback and grow as a person.
Tip #3: Sleep on it.
Sometimes you’ve just got to sleep on it. Seriously.
Giving yourself time and space to process the feedback without your emotions running rampant is crucial. A tool I’ve often found useful is to literally sleep on it. Rather than trying to figure out how long it’s going to take for my stress levels to drop I’ll just leave it till tomorrow. Usually after a good night's sleep you’re feeling refreshed and the initial stress from the feedback has dissipated, you are now ready to process the feedback.
Tip #4: Be mindful of where you are on the staircase.
Identifying where you are on the Feedback Staircase is important when receiving feedback to understand when you may be further down the staircase then you would like to be.
First step is acknowledging where you are on the staircase, second is to stop and try to lift yourself up the staircase towards understanding — remember that these emotions and reactions are completely normal, everyone goes through the same steps on the feedback staircase. The power of identifying where you are is to consciously move yourself further up the stairs towards understanding.
Tip #5: You are not always in the right frame-of-mind for feedback.
As you can probably see, self-awareness is almost the cornerstone when it comes to being effective at receiving feedback. I’ve found it also goes deeper than our own bias’ and cognitive dissonance.
Unfortunately our bodies cannot distinguish between different types of stress — all stress is treated the same as far as our bodies are concerned. This means the stress we get from annoying teenagers on the bus into work, lack of sleep, exercise, work, and the cognitive dissonance we just received from feedback are all treated the same way. This means that we need to be extra mindful of our own emotions and stress even before receiving feedback — did I have a bad morning? Am I going through a life-changing event? Maybe I’m just annoyed by those noisy teenagers this morning? — whatever the reason, stress regardless of the kind will compound once you add cognitive dissonance from feedback on top of it. In extreme cases, this may cause you to not be in the best frame-of-mind for receiving feedback. It may therefore be better to ask to receive the feedback at a later date — another time when you are less stressed and better positioned to receive feedback more effectively.
Tip #6: Breath.
Sounds silly, but honestly sometimes you’ve just got to breathe. If your level of cognitive dissonance is high your body will be dealing with a large amount of stress. In order to stay calm and objective you need to lower the stress. This is easy if you can walk away and allow it to dissipate over time but you may not always have the luxury to do so.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the stress we receive from feedback is a flight-or-fight response — as this process starts our heart rate increases, our pupils dilate and our veins constrict ready for the (literal) fight-or-flight to come. Whilst extremely useful in a survival situation, these natural reactions are not so great in such modern times — not too many lions and tigers running around Manhattan. A surge of cortisol — the adrenaline drug — is the cause here, a natural stress reaction however as it drives our heart rate through the roof we get side effects, such as tunnel vision, hearing loss and in many cases a loss of cognitive function — not great when you’re trying to listen to feedback.
Something I learned from when I was in the army was the use of breathing strategies to keep such high levels of stress in check — when you start to feel this occurring — like you want to explode, interrupt and defend yourself — stop and remind yourself it’s just cognitive dissonance then BREEEATH…Take slow steady breaths — the army teaches you four-count breaths but I find simply keeping them slow and steady is easier for most people and still have the same impact. Slow and steady breathing will combat the effects of cortisol, it will lower your heart rate down and help your body relax.
The hope here is not to bring yourself all the way back down to zero stress, because that may not be possible in the given situation — rather the goal is to combat high-stress situations like the fight-or-flight response and bring yourself back to a stage where you can still listen and walk away with the feedback in your head. Allowing you to later properly consume the feedback when the stress has fully gone.
Tip #7: Remember Remain is always an option.
Once you have calmed your mind and have objectively processed the feedback remember that feedback is just one point of view among many, it isn’t the truth. Change therefore is a choice and only once you have properly processed the feedback and any other relevant data points can you decided what to do with the feedback, if anything. Remember not all feedback has to result in a change.
Wrap Up
Receiving feedback is hard and processing it objectively enough to lead to change is even harder. Unfortunately, human nature works against us in this department.
Remember that feeling stressed and being uncomfortable is just cognitive dissonance — it’s a natural thing and everyone experiences it.
Be mindful of where you are on the staircase and try to pull yourself further up the staircase. If you find yourself being defensive or denying the feedback, stop and sleep on it. Use breathing strategies if necessary, let yourself relax and calm down to allow your mind space to properly process the feedback.
Ultimately remember that you have a sixth option — to remain. Feedback is simply one person’s point of view, it’s not the whole picture. It’s ok to process feedback, take in other relevant points of view and decide to remain for whatever reason — not all feedback has to result in a change.
