The Art of Manliness - #246： How to Get Better at Taking Feedback

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when authors

00:00:17.900 doug stone and bruce patten were researching their book difficult conversations they asked

00:00:22.380 people what they felt was their most difficult conversation to have in both their personal

00:00:26.060 lives and in their career and time and time again people pointed to conversations involving

00:00:31.220 feedback they didn't like giving it and they especially didn't like receiving it even when

00:00:36.280 the feedback was meant to be constructive but here's the thing knowing how to give and receive

00:00:40.680 feedback is essential for our personal and professional growth to remedy the discomfort

00:00:45.060 we have with feedback most books and articles focus on how the giver of the feedback can take

00:00:50.340 the sting out of his delivery with tactics like the ever-popular criticism sandwich but doug stone

00:00:55.700 argues that in his latest book when it comes to feedback we should be focusing on how we can be

00:00:59.660 better receivers of it stone is the author of the book thanks for the feedback the science and art

00:01:04.680 of receiving feedback well and today he joins me on the show to discuss why constructive criticism is

00:01:09.700 so hard to take as well as brass tacks advice and how you can be less defensive and more open to the

00:01:15.420 feedback you receive on a daily basis you want to take notes with this episode it's crammed with

00:01:20.160 information that can improve your life immediately after the show's over check out the show notes at

00:01:24.440 aom.is slash feedback

00:01:26.680 doug stone welcome to the show great to be here so you are the author of a book called thanks for

00:01:42.820 the feedback you previously wrote a book called difficult conversations co-authored a book called

00:01:47.020 difficult conversations it's a great book i've read that one as well but what i thought was

00:01:50.460 interesting the research and writing of that book you all uncovered that the most difficult

00:01:54.300 conversation that people reported having was giving and receiving feedback what is it about feedback that

00:02:02.200 just makes it hard to give and people hate doing it yeah well i have this sort of weird job where

00:02:08.240 among other things i go into organizations or communities or work with families and one of the first

00:02:15.100 questions i ask them i'm working with them on communication how to how to communicate more

00:02:20.120 clearly one of the first questions i ask them are what are some of your hardest conversations what are

00:02:24.500 some examples and we make a list and pretty much without fail they'll always put giving and receiving

00:02:32.100 feedback on the list and that applies whether it's uh you know some global corporation or just some

00:02:39.500 smaller group it just it seems to be a universal human challenge uh getting feedback giving feedback

00:02:46.460 uh and so that was once we started realizing that that was such a common pattern we decided to really

00:02:52.920 try to focus on that question so what i thought was interesting the way you guys approach this though

00:02:57.420 is that you know most books and articles you see about how to make feedback better focus on the giver

00:03:02.660 right so you do the do the compliment sandwich you know start off something good you like give the

00:03:07.720 feedback and they start with the call then with the end of the compliment um but you argue in the book

00:03:12.300 that that gets the solution to the problem backwards and instead we should focus on the receiver of the

00:03:17.400 feedback why is that yeah well you know the compliment sandwich by the way uh it's it's not a terrible

00:03:23.360 idea the idea of starting positive then negative then positive but the problem is of course if you gave

00:03:28.740 someone a sandwich that had bread ham and bread they wouldn't call it a bread sandwich or a bread ham and

00:03:35.500 bread sandwich they just call it i am sandwich because they know the thing in the middle is the

00:03:39.720 important part so the uh the challenge of the compliment sandwich is especially people notice

00:03:46.340 that it's a pattern they kind of dismiss the positive stuff and then they just take on the

00:03:51.740 negative stuff so it doesn't end up serving the purpose that maybe it should um so but yeah our our

00:03:57.820 angle on this was to focus on the people receiving the feedback rather than the people giving the

00:04:03.960 feedback and again from from where i sit we were getting called in by organizations to help train

00:04:11.420 their managers in how to give feedback better which makes sense to us so we went and we did that

00:04:17.900 uh and we did a bunch and over time what we found is people the people that we were working with would

00:04:23.700 say yeah this is helping a little bit people are getting better at it but the whole system still

00:04:29.400 isn't working as well as we're hoping or as well as we'd like and we started thinking about that we

00:04:34.380 were thinking you know what can what else can we teach people about how to get feedback and it

00:04:39.500 suddenly dawned on us just like stunningly obvious that there are two people in that conversation

00:04:46.100 right there's a feedback giver and a feedback receiver and we're focusing all our energy on how do you

00:04:53.520 get better as a feedback giver and there's only so far you can go you can go from not good to pretty

00:04:59.320 good or pretty good to very good but at the end of the day the person who is deciding what that

00:05:06.040 feedback means whether to take it uh is the person on the receiving end and so we started looking at

00:05:12.760 the whole question from that point of view right and that's and that could be a hard sell um to say

00:05:17.480 that you the for the receiver to improve their improving how they receive feedback it's like

00:05:22.440 listen here i got this feedback i'm going to give you like what you're doing wrong and here's how

00:05:26.960 you can actually listen to me better it is a hard sell exactly uh yeah go ahead oh yeah i mean it's a

00:05:32.200 hard sell but so let's talk about this like what makes receiving feedback so difficult so you are you

00:05:37.660 in the book there's two tensions inside of us that make feet receiving feedback sort of hard to swallow

00:05:44.740 yeah so i just as human beings we all have two driving needs well we have we have a bunch of them

00:05:52.320 but among others we have two and one is we we do want to learn and get better and improve and if you

00:05:58.640 ask anybody whether they want to learn and get better and improve everybody says yes uh at the same

00:06:04.160 time we want to feel like the people around us the people we work with the people we live with the

00:06:08.760 people we care about um accept us and love us and appreciate us the way we are now and so we on the

00:06:16.440 one hand we want to get better which means we need to sort of hear feedback take it engage with it

00:06:23.000 and on the other hand we are kind of stuck because we're thinking well what does that mean if they're

00:06:28.500 they're giving me all the feedback what does that mean about me what does that mean about whether i'm

00:06:32.580 okay the way i am now and so it's uh it's a difficult place to be and it's not it's not

00:06:38.700 because there's something wrong with any individual person that they don't like getting feedback i think

00:06:43.460 it's it's pretty universal right and so you say there's three obstacles or what you call triggers

00:06:49.560 that blocks us from you know getting to that point where we want to get better we listen to feedback to

00:06:55.840 get better um and these triggers cause us to get defensive what are those uh obstacles yeah so when we

00:07:02.120 studied this we realized that there's a million reasons people don't take feedback and you could

00:07:07.960 just make a huge list and say here's a million reasons why we get in trouble um but what you know

00:07:15.000 a reader or somebody uh who's learning about this can't really you can't really do anything with a list of

00:07:21.980 a million reasons or even 50 reasons so what we try to do is just break them down into three

00:07:27.900 key categories three kinds of uh triggers that we all have that can set us off and the first

00:07:35.860 is is the most obvious which is what we call the truth trigger and this just if we get if i get

00:07:42.960 feedback that says you know you talked you were sort of dominating that meeting or you were talking

00:07:48.700 over people and i'm thinking that's just wrong you know either because i don't think i was

00:07:54.680 talking that much or in an extreme example maybe i wasn't at the meeting so it's like literally

00:08:00.420 actually wrong if we get feedback that we think is wrong we're not going to take it and reading uh

00:08:07.980 this book about feedback people think well so if taking if receiving feedback is a good thing and

00:08:14.640 that's how you learn does that mean i have to take all feedback even if it's wrong and of course the

00:08:20.580 answer is no right we have enough feedback that's right and useful we don't need to be

00:08:25.760 taking feedback that's actually wrong that's going to send us in the wrong direction uh so the the key

00:08:32.400 around the truth trigger and we can get more into this uh in a bit uh isn't that well we should just

00:08:38.720 assume all feedback is helpful and right and accurate um but just that we we we're probably rejecting

00:08:45.460 feedback before we even understand what it actually means um and that's a that's a common pattern

00:08:51.360 uh a second trigger is uh what we call relationship triggers and this is not so much about the

00:08:58.300 substance of the feedback right it's not so much the content of what someone's saying but just sort of

00:09:04.680 who that person is who's the person giving it to me right so we're going to hear feedback

00:09:08.700 differently if it comes from our spouse or our partner or our parent or our boss or our child or

00:09:15.960 our neighbor or someone we like someone we don't like someone we trust someone we don't trust uh and

00:09:22.160 we tend to let the the sort of who dominate the what and in our view it's it's important just to

00:09:30.720 just separate those out to think about you know who's giving me the feedback and what's my reaction

00:09:36.300 to it but is even if i don't necessarily trust this person is there anything that might be

00:09:41.500 legitimate or useful to me in in what they're saying and then the third trigger is what we call

00:09:46.840 identity triggers and this is mostly about what what does the feedback say about who i am and how i see

00:09:54.780 myself uh and when feedback feels you know you get feedback that you're not a good parent or not a good

00:10:02.780 boyfriend or you know the presentation didn't go well it's very easy to to let that sort of get out

00:10:10.900 of uh control and just start thinking like well what does this mean about me and what kind of person

00:10:16.340 am i and what do people really think about me and we just we we start getting so lost in that that

00:10:21.620 we're not we're not really even taking in the feedback anymore gotcha so let's uh let's go into

00:10:25.980 these uh these triggers and how to overcome them in more detail uh so the truth trigger um you start

00:10:32.360 off in that section about breaking down the types of feedback that we get and you say there's three

00:10:38.140 there's appreciation feedback coaching feedback and evaluation feedback can you briefly describe

00:10:44.160 what each type of feedback looks like um and then we'll talk about how those things can get mixed

00:10:48.920 together and cause problems yeah exactly so imagine your partner or roommate or spouse uh

00:10:55.940 has been cooking meals for you in the evening and they've made let's say they've made meatloaf for the

00:11:02.120 last 30 nights um so appreciate let's say you want to give that feedback on this meatloaf appreciation

00:11:09.120 would say uh honey i'm so uh grateful to you for putting all this time in making a meatloaf it means a lot

00:11:16.960 to me right so that's appreciation we know what that is coaching would be um offering advice on how

00:11:22.840 the meatloaf can improve so you might say i think meatloaf tastes better if it's fully defrosted before

00:11:28.800 it's served uh so you might have some little cooking tips there and evaluation would evaluation sort of

00:11:35.100 ranks the person or the effort so you might say well we've been having this 30 days in a row and

00:11:41.740 day 17 you know this feedback was in the top third of all the meatloaf that he had made

00:11:48.220 and so each of these appreciation coaching and evaluation have different purposes behind them

00:11:54.320 and as you say and we can get into um they get sort of mixed up and that's one of the that's one

00:12:00.740 of the things that makes feedback the toughest yeah so let's talk about how can they get mixed up

00:12:04.640 and why does that cause problems yeah so the one of the first things that happens is that

00:12:09.280 appreciation just drops out and you know in the workplace i think people just feel like well

00:12:15.000 we're you know we're busy people are getting a paycheck uh and so we uh and you know the the

00:12:22.860 the negative feedback is is always an emergency right you know you've got to you've got to turn

00:12:27.900 this document around you've got to get this out those are emergencies it's never an emergency to

00:12:32.380 pull somebody aside and say thank you that was a really great effort um so appreciation can easily

00:12:38.700 drop out but studies have shown that uh the u.s department of labor did a couple studies where

00:12:44.760 they found that uh over 90 percent of american workers feel underappreciated at work which is kind

00:12:51.420 of a staggering statistic and uh a similar stat they found that people who leave their jobs voluntarily

00:12:58.700 in other words they're not fired but they quit um cite a lack of appreciation as the number one

00:13:06.380 reason reason about 50 percent of people say lack of appreciation as the number one reason so

00:13:11.380 uh when appreciation drops out it really has a potentially very negative effect on the relationship

00:13:18.120 uh and you know appreciation i think it's as with the feedback sandwich that we started with

00:13:24.300 we can we can often give appreciation that sounds like you know we say hey great job that's the

00:13:31.840 appreciation then the things we want them to do differently we say i've got a list of 100 things

00:13:38.120 that i want you to change and then at the end we say and by the way great job so the the positive

00:13:43.380 appreciation is incredibly general and it's not attached to anything the person has no reason

00:13:48.540 to believe that it means anything um and then the negative things the things that actually need some

00:13:53.920 action are very specific and uh it's actually quite useful to try to offer specific appreciation

00:14:01.560 specific positive things that the person's doing well um partly because it makes them feel good and

00:14:06.420 partly also that teaches them that those are things that they should keep doing so one of the one of the

00:14:13.380 key challenges is that appreciation drops out and that can be rough on the relationship um the other

00:14:19.060 key thing that the sort of common dynamic is that coaching and evaluation get confused and that we we

00:14:27.380 often hear um coaching as evaluation and i'll give you an example let's just a simple example imagine

00:14:35.360 you're driving and you have a passenger and you can imagine whoever you want as your passenger but the

00:14:40.420 passenger just says hey slow down you're driving too fast so what is that what's the message there you

00:14:47.160 could hear that in two ways you could hear that as coaching like drive a little bit slower it's safer

00:14:54.260 there's you know that's going to be a useful tip around your driving skills or you could hear it as

00:15:00.300 evaluation like you're a reckless person or you're uh you know you don't care about safety uh and and

00:15:08.760 the person might be saying one or the other of those but as human beings we often tend to hear the

00:15:14.820 evaluation that's given uh and we the coaching drops out so the part that's going to help us actually get

00:15:21.360 better at something if somebody has actual driving tips for us that might be useful to us

00:15:26.800 um we're not going to hear them if we just get into an argument about you know why are you always

00:15:31.000 criticizing my driving etc so how do you how do you separate coaching and evaluation like when you're

00:15:36.160 having that when someone's giving you feedback like do you stop the conversations like are you trying

00:15:40.820 to offer some advice are you evaluating me i mean like do you have to be so um obvious about it or

00:15:46.580 are there subtle ways to separate the two yeah so you know i think in like a formal work conversation

00:15:51.900 you can separate them out just by literally raising them saying like is this an event is the purpose of

00:15:57.840 this conversation to rate me in some way to rank me or is it coaching um in personal conversations

00:16:05.360 you know a big thing that i've been working on in my own life is just trying to change the default

00:16:11.080 assumption that i have about what the person is doing because very often my default assumption i think

00:16:15.980 is true for a lot of us is that i hear it as evaluation i hear it as just criticism about

00:16:21.240 who i am so they're commenting on my driving or the way i dress or the my presentation and you know

00:16:29.040 it's very easy to hear it as you're not good enough there's something wrong with you you're an idiot

00:16:33.700 whatever um and that's my sort of default so that and that and that it's when i get feedback if i'm

00:16:41.240 giving a presentation and there's a break and someone comes up to me and says hey you know i think

00:16:45.260 it'd be good if we uh did an exercise after the break you know that sounds pretty clearly like

00:16:52.640 it's intended as coaching it's intended as advice to help me do something better um but if i'm hearing

00:16:59.140 it as evaluation which is my own tendency then i'm just going to hear it as you know your presentation

00:17:04.900 stinks and uh we just wanted you to know that and for now i feel bad plus there's nothing i can do

00:17:11.520 right just like okay you don't think i'm good at this that's that's where we're at if i hear it

00:17:17.320 as coaching it's not a critique it's not an evaluation it's not a ranking it's just an idea

00:17:22.680 that i can try to take on board or not something that'll help me learn and improve and get better

00:17:28.320 which is pretty much the whole point of the feedback in the first place yeah and i think another

00:17:32.960 point you made was too is when you ask for feedback make sure you know what you're actually

00:17:38.180 looking for i think sometimes people ask for feedback from people and other when you ask

00:17:42.880 someone i want some feedback they're thinking oh they want me to coach them or evaluate this but

00:17:46.560 like the asker is really wanting some appreciation like hey this is you did a good job keep going at

00:17:52.480 it you know but and then they don't get that and they get all upset yeah exactly um i was i i've been

00:17:58.360 taking some guitar lessons recently just trying to pick up from my sort of high school guitar skills

00:18:04.040 um and you know i'm a pretty rudimentary guitar player at least and i had sort of learned this

00:18:11.420 one thing and i played it for my teacher and what i really wanted was for my teacher to say

00:18:16.120 wow look at that like you actually played something and it uh it almost sounded like something

00:18:21.300 and what he said instead was okay so uh here's a couple ways you could fix that or improve that and i was

00:18:30.000 just thinking yeah this this is not this is not meeting me where i'm at right now uh so it's very

00:18:36.000 it's very easy to get those um confused and it can be rough when that happens i think that's some

00:18:42.220 good um insight for the giver of feedback you know i guess when someone's starting out with something

00:18:47.520 a beginner they probably need more appreciation more value positive evaluation to keep them going

00:18:53.360 and then as they get better that's when you can start giving more of the coaching right and the

00:18:59.040 fine-tuning yeah exactly i had a teaching assistant once who uh kept saying you know give me more

00:19:06.160 coaching give me more coaching and uh and i kept saying like okay so next time you could do this

00:19:11.260 differently and this differently and then she would say no but give me more coaching and we and it was

00:19:16.600 sort of like she kind of wouldn't stop and i was thinking like wow i've told you everything i know

00:19:22.040 and i don't know how much more of this you can even take on board and finally it occurred to me

00:19:26.960 she's she's asking for sort of advice on how to improve but i hadn't really given much global

00:19:34.400 appreciation and i just sort of stepped back and i said you know something occurs to me that

00:19:38.700 that i haven't said which is you're just really good at this like if you keep doing this you're

00:19:45.220 going to be good if you have you have a lot of passion and talent for this and she was just so

00:19:52.080 that that was like exactly where she was at she that was what she needed to hear uh and as you

00:19:57.740 say i think that's right especially at the beginning when people are trying to get their

00:20:01.780 feet under them that kind of feedback can be just you know more important than any other

00:20:06.820 than the best most brilliant piece of advice so going back to this truth obstacle you know one of our

00:20:12.820 i think knee-jerk reactions when we receive feedback is trying to find out why that feedback's wrong

00:20:18.040 like why is this guy wrong and why am i right um and it's natural but how can we overcome that

00:20:25.200 uh knee-jerk reaction and actually listen to or uh consider the feedback with you know like you said

00:20:32.040 you don't necessarily accept it but at least consider it yeah exactly so when we often when we're

00:20:38.680 we're taking in feedback we're hearing it through the question in our head the question in our head

00:20:42.920 that's playing is what's wrong with this feedback and if that's the question that you have

00:20:47.620 there's always going to be something wrong with it right it's it's out of date it was a it was a

00:20:52.140 month ago that that happened or it was five minutes ago that that happened it's not true anymore

00:20:55.320 or you you know you talk to the wrong people or you didn't put the feedback quite the right way there's

00:21:00.420 always something wrong with feedback and so if we if we sort of throw out feedback just based on spotting

00:21:08.000 something that's wrong with it we're always going to end up throwing out all the feedback um and uh it's not

00:21:14.540 that we should therefore ask the question you know it's not that we should just say okay well if i'm

00:21:21.360 not supposed to ask what's wrong i'll just assume it's right and take all the feedback because as we

00:21:25.240 said before that's not going to be useful but and so it's fine to ask what's wrong with it but we also

00:21:30.440 need to pair that with uh it's uh sort of sister question which is what's right about this feedback

00:21:38.240 what what could i actually learn what would might what might be useful about this it's a sort of like

00:21:43.920 if you went into a clothing store and you tried on a pair of pants and they didn't fit and you just

00:21:48.640 walked out and said well the clothes in the store don't fit and you know it would be pretty reasonable

00:21:54.680 to say well you tried on one pair and they didn't fit they've got a hundred other pair of pants

00:21:59.380 and it's the same with feedback where we think if we can find one thing wrong with it then

00:22:04.940 that feedback we're just going to throw it at uh but better to actually step back and say

00:22:09.860 uh you know is there anything here that might be useful to me that that might make sense to me that

00:22:15.680 might actually help me and i think another issue that gets to this truth trigger is that um there's

00:22:20.700 often a um a miscommunication about what's going on what's actually happening so there's these blind

00:22:27.780 spots that exist so like people can't read your brain they can't read your mind so you might have

00:22:33.380 might have intended something and and they give you feedback that says well no you you were you're

00:22:38.780 doing this this is what your intention was but like that wasn't your intention you were actually

00:22:42.400 trying to do this thing that you were that they said that you weren't trying to do so how do you

00:22:46.460 close that gap between the the giver and the receiver about feedback or about the truth of feedback

00:22:53.340 yeah so that well this whole topic of blind spots is is really fascinating i think i think everyone

00:22:59.760 would agree that human beings have blind spots and what they mean by that is other people have

00:23:04.320 blind spots we it's very hard for us even just conceptually to think of ourselves as having

00:23:10.040 blind spots and by blind spots yeah a couple of examples are things like our facial expressions

00:23:17.060 you think about sitting in a meeting in a in a work setting or in a family you know sitting around a

00:23:23.320 family dinner table everybody else in that setting can see your face the only person who can't see

00:23:30.360 your face is yourself and so they all have this information about you which is what your face looks

00:23:36.500 like right now which is information that you literally don't have and you sort of imagine what

00:23:42.240 you think your face looks like or what you imagine your face is conveying if anything and sometimes the

00:23:49.100 way you imagine is right and sometimes your face is kind of giving off uh information or communication

00:23:55.500 that is different either different in the sense that it's not what you intended or sometimes it's

00:24:01.220 different in the sense that it's exactly what you're actually thinking but didn't necessarily want to be

00:24:06.540 saying um i was working with uh an executive uh a few years back and she had just gotten a bunch of

00:24:14.040 feedback that said that you know her team members were down on her and didn't think she was doing a

00:24:20.260 good job and found her very difficult to work with and this was particularly disturbing because she'd

00:24:26.220 gotten the same feedback three years ago and she was really working on it and she was proud of herself

00:24:31.420 for being easier to work with and then lo and behold three years later feedback swings around again and

00:24:37.840 she gets the same critique and i said well what do you make of this what's what's causing this from

00:24:43.240 what do you why do you think people are finding you difficult to work with and she said well here's

00:24:49.080 what i think i don't think i am difficult to work with i think it's political you know everyone likes

00:24:54.640 shooting down their boss it's just uh you know there's other stuff going on and then and and and she

00:25:01.620 assured me that she was a uh you know a friendly compassionate person and then her cell phone rang and she

00:25:09.200 took the call as i was standing there and i could hear her side of the conversation obviously and it

00:25:15.800 was a colleague uh subordinate of hers who had called to ask a question and her response sounded

00:25:24.020 essentially like this she said no i'm in a meeting right now i told you that's the kind of thing you

00:25:30.280 should be finding out on your own i i told you not to bother me with these kinds of questions

00:25:34.040 thank you and she hung up and she said see this is the problem you know the people i'm working with

00:25:40.160 they have no initiative they keep bothering me these questions but as you could hear i'm very polite i

00:25:46.000 explain things to people so i don't know exactly what's causing the problem and what i could hear and

00:25:51.620 what her colleague could hear that she apparently wasn't hearing was that her tone of voice is filled

00:25:57.400 with contempt for this person and frustration right so a person on the other end of the phone isn't

00:26:03.240 thinking okay so you're you're coaching me on how to you know uh do things on my own and you're saying

00:26:10.920 thank you at the end so this is all good the person's hearing the frustration as the key message

00:26:16.200 or the contempt you know you're not smart enough you're not good enough you don't work hard enough

00:26:20.680 and so when they evaluate her that's what they're evaluating and it's it's uh it's just a blind spot

00:26:27.380 from her point of view she doesn't it's not that she's a bad person or that she's pretending

00:26:31.980 she literally didn't know that she was giving out those messages that's a hard problem to solve

00:26:38.380 too because like in her mind she thought that she was genuinely trying to be more easy to get along

00:26:45.600 with easy to work with but like that actually wasn't yeah exactly so i mean how do you solve that

00:26:50.260 problem like when you think oh yeah i am doing this thing but you're actually not doing this thing

00:26:53.640 how do you overcome that yeah exactly well so it it is hard um i mean just by definition

00:27:00.040 these are applying spots and if you could see them easily they would have a different name

00:27:04.140 um but the the thing that i've seen work best is to begin to notice the these these gaps where

00:27:12.300 you think you're doing something well and you're getting feedback not just once and not just from one

00:27:19.760 person but from different sources that say no actually you're not doing this well um and it's

00:27:27.220 not that it so what we tend to do is we explain that gap by some other we we put in some explanation

00:27:34.560 like it's political or they're jealous these these are these are very common examples people will fill

00:27:41.440 in that gap by saying well they're they're jealous of me because i'm successful or i'm good at this

00:27:46.060 etc um and so the the the awareness for us has to be built around that starting point where we

00:27:54.860 we think we're one way and we're getting we do hear the feedback that that we're maybe not so easy

00:28:01.320 to work with in this example but instead of saying like the i have to explain it away um just sort of

00:28:09.180 sit with it and say you know it's possible that people are giving me this feedback because they're

00:28:13.840 jealous or it's possible that they're giving me this feedback because there's some political thing

00:28:17.820 going on but what if it what if it were a different reason what if the feedback were in some way

00:28:24.840 legitimate and important what how could i make sense of that and then you know a place to go is to think

00:28:31.640 about what are some of the common well line spots that we all have and and there's the list isn't that

00:28:37.600 long it's things around um you know body language facial expressions tone of voice um and so forth and

00:28:45.540 so once you start seeing those gaps and you start sort of running through that you can at least um

00:28:51.120 begin to get a sense of it and and then once you have a sense that maybe that's what's going on

00:28:56.220 you can talk to a friend or colleague and sort of urge them to tell you the truth not just the

00:29:03.160 it's a friendly thing but you know to say like i think this i think i'm getting feedback here that

00:29:08.680 might be in a blind spot so i want you to let me know if you know how this looks from your perspective

00:29:14.280 okay so you ask them to tell them the hard hard truth let's switch over to relationship triggers i

00:29:20.140 think we've all experienced this right i mean i remember as a kid if my parents gave me feedback

00:29:24.340 on something i'd just be like roll my eyes and just like oh my gosh you guys don't know anything

00:29:28.020 but then if some coach or teacher or stranger gave me the exact same advice i'm like oh yeah

00:29:33.180 this person knows what they're talking about i'm gonna i'm gonna follow this uh advice so i think we

00:29:38.920 all intuitively understand why relationships can affect how we receive feedback one of the interesting

00:29:46.100 things i thought you hit on because i've seen this in my own life is this idea of switch track

00:29:51.040 conversations that can happen because of a relationship so what are switch track conversations

00:29:57.040 so in the book we give um i think a great example that's also a fun example people at this point

00:30:04.460 probably know the comedian louis ck and he's a stand-up comic and he currently has a show called

00:30:10.900 louis on uh cable but before that show he had a prior show called lucky louis and there's a scene

00:30:17.380 so in that show he's married to uh his wife obviously and he's about to have a romantic weekend with

00:30:24.380 her and he brings her red roses as a as a gift and the first thing out of her mouth is uh you know

00:30:32.460 i don't like red roses remember then the next thing out of his mouth is uh you know whether you like red

00:30:41.040 roses or not a polite person says thank you for the roses and then you can comment on whether you like

00:30:47.880 them or not and then she says why would i thank you for something that i don't want and they sort of go

00:30:53.560 back and forth like this and it's when i was watching it i was thinking you know this is uh it's

00:31:00.720 obviously it's like a marital argument and it's it feels very real and typical and then it suddenly

00:31:07.540 occurred to me that what was going on was this dynamic of what in the book we call switch tracking

00:31:13.140 where these two people are almost in two different conversations like they're it sounds like they're

00:31:19.500 talking about the roses and they're both talking about the roses so you think well maybe they're

00:31:24.120 talking about the same thing but in fact uh the wife is saying you don't listen to me i've told you

00:31:30.520 before that i don't like red roses you don't listen to me and the husband is saying you don't appreciate

00:31:36.960 me i try to do nice things for you and you don't appreciate me those are just two different

00:31:41.960 conversations you can't have those at the same time um you know sort of in a back and forth you you

00:31:49.000 actually have to separate out those two topics and have each of them separately uh and and and you

00:31:56.640 know they're not easy conversations to have separately either but there's at least some chance that the

00:32:02.600 husband or louie in this case could say so it sounds like you think i don't listen to you tell me more

00:32:07.960 about that let's talk about that and then you could swing around and say so the other thing that's

00:32:13.020 going on here is i feel like you don't appreciate the efforts that i make and then they could talk

00:32:17.640 about that and there you at least have a chance to to get through both these conversations in a useful

00:32:23.220 way but once you start noticing that dynamic of switch tracking it's unbelievable how common it is

00:32:31.220 in our lives where we get or give feedback let's say we get feedback and instead of responding to

00:32:38.700 the content of the feedback we respond to how it's delivered or who's giving it to us or what time

00:32:44.860 you know how could you how could you send that bad news by email how could you send it on you know

00:32:51.600 friday at five o'clock not that those are those may be legitimate conversations to have but they're

00:32:57.920 additional to whatever the actual underlying feedback was about yeah and i think it's a i think

00:33:02.520 it's mainly like a defense mechanism because i know i do that right when my wife will bring something

00:33:06.580 up i'll say well like you know you really could have said that differently like i just completely

00:33:11.260 ignore the feedback i'm just trying to like trying to protect my ego by throwing hey you're well you're

00:33:16.700 not so great either because you do this thing exactly it's i think that's right it's partly a defense

00:33:22.180 mechanism but it's partly just it's an it's a real thing in other words like if you uh if you feel

00:33:30.320 like you're either getting too much criticism or you're not appreciated for what you do well

00:33:35.340 um when someone criticizes you the thing that's in your head is well wait a second what about all the

00:33:42.040 times where i didn't do that and so it's you're you're trying to defend yourself but you're trying to

00:33:46.820 defend yourself not to you know get out of looking at the truth you're trying to defend yourself

00:33:51.480 because you feel like you actually this is a legitimate important topic and it is um the

00:33:58.180 challenge is just that it needs to be a separate conversation um you know if you uh comment on

00:34:06.500 um the house is not neat or whatever and the person storms out of the room uh you know what is it

00:34:14.520 that's triggering them let's talk about that and let's also talk about sort of what are the rules about

00:34:19.460 how we keep the house clean so how how does the dynamic of relationship affect whether you get

00:34:25.020 into these switch track conversations i mean is it is it if there's like a lot of tension you're likely

00:34:29.900 to more likely to move to these switch track conversations or if there's less tension you're

00:34:34.420 less likely to do it yeah i think if there's more tension we're more likely but i think we all actually

00:34:39.260 fall into them pretty commonly that uh just think how common it is to say things like i can't believe

00:34:47.260 they told me that you know at five on friday or uh i don't like you know i can't believe they broke

00:34:53.180 up with me on the telephone that kind of thing we're we're we're just uh very sensitive and i think

00:35:00.660 rightly so to sort of the way feedback is delivered and the timing of it and the the you know does the

00:35:07.520 person appreciate us or not um so it just it comes up constantly and again the the answer

00:35:14.260 isn't to pretend that you don't have your own concerns for example with louis and the flowers

00:35:20.000 the answer is not for him to say okay i'll start listening to you from now on and now we're done

00:35:25.360 the answer is for him to talk about her topic which is listening but then for him separately to talk

00:35:32.100 about his topic which is appreciation all right so be aware of it so what can we do to mitigate

00:35:37.640 relationship triggers when we're giving and receiving feedback right i mean like like i said in that

00:35:42.160 earlier example like your parents or your wife could give you a set of advice but you just ignore it

00:35:46.740 because like they're your parents and your wife but if some complete stranger gives you advice you're

00:35:52.100 like oh yeah i'm gonna list that's that's actually a good point um so how do you overcome that bias of

00:35:57.460 just totally disregarding advice if it comes from someone close to you even though it might be useful

00:36:02.660 uh a few things i mean i think the the first thing is just to be aware of that right to

00:36:08.220 to notice when you're in a pattern where your wife or a relationship or somebody is giving you

00:36:16.300 feedback over and over again and you've kind of stopped hearing it because it's your parent or

00:36:22.680 spouse or whatever and just to ask yourself okay so what's going on here i'm not taking this feedback

00:36:28.800 because they're annoying me or because this is you know it's my parent being critical or whatever

00:36:36.120 um and to to if you choose to to try to make that discussable to say like in a marriage to say look

00:36:43.820 um you know every every day you spend the day criticizing me for not taking up the garbage

00:36:52.440 uh you know the hundred things that i'm doing wrong um let's figure let's see if we can figure

00:36:58.860 this out so we don't have to keep having the same conversation um just making it explicit and if it

00:37:04.780 you know at the same time uh when we're sort of beaten down by too much feedback from the same

00:37:11.360 person it's fine to say and probably useful to say this feedback's not helpful anymore there's nothing

00:37:18.160 nothing new in this feedback for me um you know i'm trying to change or here's the limits of what i can

00:37:24.040 do but you just giving me this feedback over and over again isn't isn't doing anything for me in

00:37:29.960 terms of actually fixing the problem so you argue in the book that the way we uh receive feedback

00:37:36.500 and handle it can often be determined by our wiring and temperament how so yeah so there's this in

00:37:43.140 psychology some people subscribe to what they call the 50 40 10 rule and i don't know about the exact

00:37:50.380 percentages but the idea of it is that about 50 percent of how we react in the world to feedback or the

00:37:59.700 bad news or to setbacks um is just based on our wiring our constitution you know our literally our

00:38:07.960 sort of uh neurology um and 10 percent the 50 40 10 so 50 is wiring 10 is based on the actual

00:38:20.340 situation that's going on around us so we're getting the bad news you know we didn't get the pay raise

00:38:26.980 or whatever it was um and that leaves this 40 and the 40 uh of how we react in any given situation

00:38:36.820 isn't based on our wiring and it's not based on the actual situation and so you say well what's left

00:38:42.520 what did it what could it based on and what it's based on is the the way we're interpreting what the

00:38:47.900 news is the story that we're telling about it and so you know if you don't if you don't get a pay

00:38:54.340 raise you might say well there's no story to tell i just don't get a pay raise so what you know what's

00:39:00.980 the story how do i how do i tell a different story i can't pretend that i got uh that i'm getting more

00:39:06.300 pay but what happens is if if you know if we find out that we're not getting a pay raise we might start

00:39:12.940 doing these kind of snowballing catastrophic thinking thinking like you know uh i'm never going

00:39:19.480 get a pay raise or i'm never going to do a good job or i'm going to get fired soon and then it can

00:39:24.400 even work backwards where we start saying we start looking to the past and say you know i've never done

00:39:28.700 anything right in my life and i can't do anything right now and i know this is about work but i'm

00:39:34.060 also not a good husband i'm not a good father and before you know it it's just completely out of

00:39:38.880 control and so the the the sort of um advice is not to pretend that you're you know getting an

00:39:47.780 increase in salary or to deny that you didn't get a pay raise but to simply keep it the size that it is

00:39:54.740 to acknowledge this is this is what this is this is what this means but also it's not about the path

00:40:00.900 it's not about you know have i ever done anything well in my life it's not about the future in the sense

00:40:06.280 that this means nothing good is ever going to happen to me again um so when we sort of supersize

00:40:12.620 the feedback it gets out of control um and that's where that 40 percent of how we react can come in

00:40:19.400 is some people will will sort of exaggerate things into the future and into the past and other people

00:40:26.540 are very good at sort of keeping it the size that it is and some people are actually go in the other

00:40:31.460 extreme which is they don't take in the feedback at all which is sort of a form of narcissism which

00:40:37.880 is not good either so you want to you want to be hearing the feedback but keeping it keeping it

00:40:43.260 the size it is and keeping it meaning what it actually means and not not a whole lot more right

00:40:47.940 so this idea of keeping things in proportion this goes to you know the identity trigger right

00:40:52.440 whenever we receive feedback it's like boy because i didn't get a pay raise it means i'm a terrible

00:40:57.860 employee because i'm a terrible employee i'm a terrible husband yada yada you right yeah right

00:41:03.920 and yeah if if you actually got genuine feedback that all these terrible things were true about your

00:41:10.840 past about your present about your future you would be pretty depressed and unhappy and you would spiral

00:41:16.780 out of control but the point is that in most of these kinds of situations you're getting a very

00:41:22.280 discrete piece of feedback and then we're telling an exaggeratedly negative story about it and that's just

00:41:27.700 shooting ourselves in the foot and you talk about you know in order to avoid this identity trigger

00:41:31.960 you need to switch from with a static mindset or a stack what's it to a growth mindset it's carol

00:41:38.620 dweck's i call we've had her on the podcast before yeah yeah oh great yeah so her work has been really

00:41:44.540 interesting yeah she talks about a fixed mindset and a growth mindset and in the fixed mindset

00:41:50.620 people think to themselves i'm i have a certain set of skills like i'm i'm a certain

00:41:57.640 amount of smart i'm a certain amount of athletic um i have a certain amount of perseverance

00:42:03.580 and so that and that's fixed and so the only thing that feedback does for me is it tells me what that

00:42:10.820 amount is so if i take a test in school i'm finding out am i smart or am i stupid so when you go in and

00:42:18.660 take a test um you know the civil war or whatever the topic is and you think that the feedback you're

00:42:24.620 getting on the test is you're smart or you're stupid and you find out you know either way

00:42:29.980 if you find out you're smart now you're thinking okay i'm smart but that puts pressure on me to

00:42:36.700 keep being smart if you find out you're stupid do you feel like well that's too bad there's nothing

00:42:40.920 i can do i guess i'm one of those people who's who's you know destined not to do well and dweck says

00:42:48.120 but you know why why are we hearing it that way we can just as easily think that uh these endowments

00:42:54.720 that we have whether you know about intelligence or athletic ability or empathy or whatever the

00:43:00.140 skill is these are things that we can get better at right and it's absolutely true that you can get

00:43:06.800 better at virtually everything in your life it's not to say everyone's going to be lebron james in

00:43:12.740 basketball or yo-yo ma you know as a cellist but you know we can all get better and sometimes we can

00:43:19.620 get a little better sometimes we can get a lot better you know some even even people that are

00:43:24.660 really really bad at math can get better at math and there's no there is no reason to think of that

00:43:31.820 as just this fixed thing and once you start thinking about it that way then you get your test score back

00:43:38.280 on the civil war and instead of thinking oh you know i've got a bad grade that means i'm stupid

00:43:43.720 the information in this conversation is that i'm stupid the information in this conversation is you

00:43:50.160 don't know much about civil war and the coaching is so study differently study harder study more

00:43:59.240 efficiently you know play fewer computer games whatever those are all things that you have

00:44:03.800 um power to influence right so you're not just stuck with a label you can actually um change it

00:44:11.460 and that gives you that gives you a lot of freedom to improve uh but it also clears away some of the

00:44:18.000 the high stakes that we associate with all these these measures along the way of our lives yeah i think

00:44:24.140 the this understanding the fixed and growth mindset and focusing on gross mindset is really useful for

00:44:28.960 that evaluative feedback or feedback you interpret as evaluative right you someone tells you like well

00:44:34.580 you're not that good and you can interpret if you have a fixed mindset well i'll never be good

00:44:38.780 but if you have a growth mindset well okay i'm not good now but i can get better right exactly and

00:44:44.780 that very naturally takes you you you do hear the evaluation you know i'm not that good right now

00:44:50.600 uh and again you don't you're not pretending that that's not true you're not pretending that you're

00:44:56.420 the civil war genius or whatever um but it also then so you're you're hearing the evaluation but

00:45:03.500 then it quickly moves into coaching which is okay if this is a thing that i can be better and worse at

00:45:09.220 and they're telling me i'm not good at it now then the coaching is i gotta i gotta start doing things

00:45:15.320 differently and uh that gives you some some power over the situation so let's talk about rejecting

00:45:21.380 feedback because as you said just because you know someone gives you feedback doesn't necessarily

00:45:25.920 you should consider it but not necessarily take it into account or actually apply what they give

00:45:31.380 you you know sometimes people are wrong sometimes you're not even looking for feedback

00:45:36.120 but rejecting feedback can be minefield because you know you're if it's your wife and you're saying

00:45:43.340 you know i'm not really looking they can get offended or your mom you know like why don't you

00:45:47.240 listen to me so how do you reject feedback tactfully yeah so that's a that's a great question and you

00:45:55.160 know as you suggest the context matters right if it's your it's your uh supervisor saying you didn't

00:46:02.360 hit your sales targets for this month and you say well you know that's not that's that's not where

00:46:08.160 i'm at right now i'm not going to be working on that feedback um that might not go over so well

00:46:13.340 um but there's lots of times in our lives for for any number of reasons and it can be

00:46:18.660 because you you really disagree with the feedback or you think it's the feedback is good for the

00:46:24.300 person who's giving it to you but not good for you or it can just be you know that's not where

00:46:28.640 you're at right now you're working on five other things you can't take on one more thing um there's

00:46:35.480 lots of reasons there's lots of good reasons just that feedback aside and i think the

00:46:40.360 the mistake that we make sometimes is is we we don't discuss that we sort of hear the feedback

00:46:46.680 and in our minds we're thinking i would never take this feedback or i can't possibly think about this

00:46:52.040 right now but then we just kind of leave it and then the other person sees that we're not doing

00:46:56.400 anything and so they come back and they think like well maybe they're not persuaded yet maybe

00:47:01.300 they didn't hear it and so they say it again then they say it again and then they say it again

00:47:05.260 um and the i think the the better course is to actually say you know what here's here's what i'm

00:47:13.300 hearing you suggesting to me and uh here's what i think of that either it does or it doesn't make

00:47:20.160 sense and here's why right now or maybe forever why i'm not gonna pursue that and the person can

00:47:27.340 agree or disagree very often once you explain it they'll say like okay you know i get that um but

00:47:33.400 they can agree or disagree but at least they know that you've heard the feedback you've understood

00:47:37.080 it and it takes away that urge they have to just keep saying it over and over and over again

00:47:42.440 um you know another thing that i think can be useful is just to be very pointed about saying um

00:47:51.800 tell me what the purpose from your point of view is of giving me the feedback and then the person says

00:47:58.560 well i want you to i want you to get better and then you and if you can then tie it back and say

00:48:05.120 this feedback doesn't actually help me get better and here's why so uh i had a colleague once who

00:48:12.300 right before i'd go up and give a talk uh he would give me little couple little things to remember

00:48:18.260 and he would do it over and over again and from his point of view he's just being as helpful as he

00:48:23.560 possibly can he's thinking like well these are the these are the things doug's probably gonna forget

00:48:28.260 so i just gotta make sure he remembers them and and i started kind of saying like you know don't

00:48:33.720 don't give me advice right before i start talking and then and he kept doing it and he's thinking

00:48:39.660 but it's good advice which maybe it is and so then i did this this move where i said but i said help

00:48:46.360 me understand what your goal is when you're giving me this advice what's the goal and he said well i just

00:48:51.360 want to increase the chance that you're going to you know do this or remember to say this in your talk

00:48:57.040 and i said okay so it doesn't have that effect it actually to some extent has the opposite effect

00:49:05.080 because what it does is it it distracts me makes me more nervous and then i do worse and you know once

00:49:12.360 he heard that he at least is sort of understanding the conversation from my point of view um and and can

00:49:20.020 back up and say okay so what would be a way that would be helpful that i could you know remind you

00:49:25.720 about this and you know the answer may be tell me the night before or let's talk about it after and

00:49:32.320 then i'll do it the next time that sort of thing but i think too often we just don't we just aren't

00:49:38.160 clear about uh the actual impact on it i think that um learning how to i don't know consider and

00:49:45.000 reject feedback is particularly important important in the internet right you can post something on

00:49:49.140 facebook and you know you're not looking for feedback you're just kind of sharing something

00:49:54.240 or whatever and then like the cousin of your cousin chimes in with just some you know with

00:50:00.260 their opinion on it it's like you need to do this or i blah blah blah blah and it's just like oh right

00:50:04.440 for a lot of people that can just like weigh on them right just like how oh yeah receiving constant

00:50:09.440 feedback via likes or comments on facebook instagram whatever so how do you how do you manage online

00:50:14.700 feedback yeah well you know we i think we're all subject to this is that the negative feedback

00:50:19.820 stings much more than the positive feedback makes us happy right so you know if you get 100 comments

00:50:28.200 and 99 of them are positive and one is negative obviously the one you're going to remember the one

00:50:34.140 that's going to stay with you is the negative one so just for starters it's good to be aware of that

00:50:38.400 it's a common human reaction is that the you know it i think it has to do with sort of our evolution

00:50:45.740 that we uh we're very sensitive to possible danger in the environment and good things are good and we

00:50:53.640 want to you know we want to pursue them but danger is sort of urgent and an emergency so when we see

00:50:59.920 something that when we get that negative post we're sort of wired just to to really focus on it

00:51:07.260 but with online stuff i you know my own my own reaction my first so one way that i get online

00:51:13.540 feedback is the comments on amazon about our books and like most of the comments on amazon you know

00:51:21.140 they're they're mostly very positive which is sweet and nice but occasionally someone will have a

00:51:26.640 negative comment and my absolute first reaction is always something critical of that person in a in a

00:51:34.300 sort of irrational crazy way so someone will say something like this book is too long or you know

00:51:40.780 this book is too hard or i don't know what my reaction is you know that that person is a jerk or

00:51:46.920 that person doesn't know how to read a book or like you know i don't have any information about this person

00:51:52.340 it could be mother teresa for all i know but the first reaction i have is going to be negative dismissive

00:51:58.980 and angry because that's kind of what's going on with me physiologically which is fine but then i

00:52:05.300 step back and i just try to see the situation more rationally and think it is you know x number of people

00:52:11.740 are reading the book x number of people are going to comment on the book when they comment on it

00:52:16.620 some of them are going to have you know good reasons for not liking the book some of them are just going

00:52:22.380 to be people that think it's fun to put up crazy comments um so sort of trying to trying to get a

00:52:29.400 to remind ourselves what's really going on when people are are posting some of those nastier comments

00:52:36.580 you know they may it's it's it's really especially on the internet i think it's rarely about the thing

00:52:43.540 that's being commented on and it's mostly about the person doing the commenting and what kind of mood

00:52:49.220 they're in uh you know what they're trying to get off their chest etc um you know but it's it's hard

00:52:55.660 we're all human beings trying to make it through and when we see those kinds of negative feedback even

00:53:02.500 if we're thinking uh that's some you know drunk angry guy at 3 a.m in the morning who just wanted to

00:53:09.800 get some aggression out there's another part of us that's thinking yeah maybe maybe they're right

00:53:15.440 maybe you know maybe this book sucks or whatever yeah i've had the drunk angry guy leave emails at

00:53:21.980 three o'clock in the morning you know going this tirade about something why i'm wrong and why my

00:53:26.760 site sucks whatever and and i'll say you know hey i thanks for reaching out but you could have given

00:53:31.480 that feedback a little more tactfully and without without fail they always say oh i'm really sorry i had a

00:53:37.360 bad day yesterday i got a little yeah exactly exactly and i shouldn't have done that um it's

00:53:43.180 really funny how that happens um well hey doug this has been a great conversation where can people learn

00:53:48.020 more about your book and your work uh well so the book's available on all the the sites amazon and

00:53:54.440 barnes noble etc um and our my website my company is called triad t-r-i-a-d consulting group and the

00:54:04.060 website is just that all in one word triad consultant group dot com and that leads you to

00:54:09.800 anything you could ever possibly need to know excellent well doug stone thank you so much for

00:54:13.660 your time it's been a pleasure it's my pleasure to be here my guest today was doug stone he's the

00:54:17.820 author of the book thanks for the feedback it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere

00:54:22.040 you can also check out his site stoneandheen.com for more information about the book also check out

00:54:27.400 the show notes at aom.is feedback for links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic

00:54:31.720 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:54:46.660 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com our show is edited

00:54:50.540 by creative audio lab here in tulsa oklahoma if you have any audio editing needs or audio production

00:54:54.620 needs check them out at creativeaudiolab.com as always i appreciate the key to support and until

00:54:59.960 next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - October 25, 2016

#246： How to Get Better at Taking Feedback

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