My Favorite Interpersonal Skills Book—Have You Read This?

Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

I've endured lots of training on feedback. But what was emphasized was how to give it—be timely, thorough, kind, and frequent, and don't forget to spin negative comments positively! Not many tips are given to the lucky recipient, though. How does one receive feedback? The thought of receiving pointed feedback makes us shudder. How can we get to a healthy place of wanting and even inviting all kinds of feedback?

Best-selling authors, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, deliver an insightful masterpiece in Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (New York: Penguin Books, 2015). They turn the tables and suggest that the key player in feedback is the receiver, not the giver, and that this fact can transform how we learn, act, and lead.

But first, what is considered feedback? "Feedback includes any information you get about yourself. In the broadest sense, it's how we learn about ourselves from our experiences and from other people—how we learn from life" (p. 4). Therefore, it can be formal or informal, straightforward or indirect, a side-comment from a friend or a written review of an employer. 

Stone and Heen spend the bulk of the book helping the reader work through difficult feedback triggers. Triggers set off emotional responses which, if we are unaware, trip us up from hearing, understanding, and/or managing the feedback we are receiving. Stone and Heen empathize with the hard feedback people give and the misunderstandings that occur.

“Learning about ourselves can be painful—sometimes brutally so—and the feedback is often delivered with a forehead-slapping lack of awareness for what makes people tick. It can feel less like a ‘gift of learning’ and more like a colonoscopy (p. 7). ”

— Stone and Heen

One "kick in the gut" example I remember comes from my early days of learning Arabic in Morocco. I practiced phrases again and again, but it still took concentrated effort for my friend to understand. 

After a muffled giggle, she shook her head. "Your 'a'yn' pronunciation makes me laugh. Your head is dense. But no problem. Keep practicing!"

Ugh! That hurt! But it did cause me to repeat that 'a'yn' sound a lot, getting better with time. It was painful critique that paid off in the end.

The deep understanding Stone and Heen express, along with their extensive research, cause them to use realistic, vivid examples. I laughed out loud at the "I have felt exactly like that!" applicable illustrations throughout the book. 

They identify three triggers, each potentially blocking us. "Our triggers are obstacles because they keep us from engaging skillfully in the conversation" (p. 17). If the receiver stays in the conversation, the feedback giver might also grow from it. "During an effective conversation, the feedback giver may come to see why their advice is unhelpful or their assessment unfair, and both parties may understand their relationship in a clarifying light. They each see how they are reacting to the other, showing a way forward that's more productive than what either imagined before" (p. 17).

Three Types of Triggers

1) Truth Triggers

When your internal voices are shouting, "Wrong!” or “That’s not right!" you have struck the "truth trigger." The advice missed the mark, and it feels like they have an incomplete view of both the issue at hand and of you. When we receive feedback that hits the "truth trigger," it's difficult to even hear what is being said because we are reacting so strongly against it (usually internally, but sometimes externally too). 

2) Relationship Triggers

"Relationship triggers" strike at the heart of the person who is giving the feedback. Maybe I find them without credibility and question their motives. Maybe the person tends to not treat us nicely at other times. Maybe we feel like the real issue is them! They trigger us to not hear the feedback.  

You may find yourself saying “Who are you to say that to me! What do you know about it?” And when you do, it's easy to change the subject of the conversation to be about the feedback giver, instead of the feedback itself. It’s called “switchtracking,” and it derails a lot of potentially helpful conversations. 

3) Identity Triggers

"Identity is the story we tell ourselves about who we are and what the future holds for us, and when critical feedback is incoming, that story is under attack" (p. 23). Ouch! How can we respond to feedback when it hits the core of how we view ourselves? 

You may hear your (typically) internal voice saying, “Well, I’m just not good at this,” or “She’s right. I’m a lousy _____(language learner, Tunisian, cook, etc.).” That’s your identity trigger. It’s a powerful response that can color what the feedback giver is really trying to communicate. 

Stone and Heen unpack helpful and practical ways to handle each of these triggers effectively. I put them into practice right away and boy, did they help!

With a crisp writing style and specific examples, Thanks for the Feedback helps readers analyze their views of receiving feedback and take steps to allow us to see it in a way we could actually use for our growth. I highly recommend this book and plan to revisit certain chapters again soon!