Feedback: How to Convert It From Painful Noise to Stimulation for Growth

Much like the jarring sensation of getting feedback in your headphones, we’ve all had the experience of getting unwelcome feedback in the form of constructive criticism from others. If we’re honest, we often react the same way to both: we recoil, assume there’s something wrong with the source of the noise and walk away agitated.

That’s one way to respond to unexpected noise. Here’s another.

Numerous studies have established that playing certain types of music around plants stimulates them to grow faster and healthier with larger yields.

If it works for our plants’ health, what about for our personal development? What if there were a way to convert the sounds of feedback from aggravating noise to stimulation we can use to grow faster and healthier with greater yields ourselves? Thanks to a trio of thought leaders and one crusty old football coach, there is. 

“I’m Trying to Make You a Better Football Player, Dammit!”

I had the great fortune to play high school football for a man with the unique name of Mojo Hollowell. Mojo was the second winningest coach in Kentucky when he retired and was a legend in my hometown.

My sophomore year we were ranked in the Top 5 in the Commonwealth most of the season, only to lose in the playoffs following some key injuries and unlucky bounces. I was limited to mop-up duty in a handful of games but was confident I’d have the opportunity to make my mark the following year.

Sure enough, when the next season came around, we had another strong team, and I got to play meaningful minutes on Friday nights. The only problem was that while my closest buddies and I got to play varsity, I was the only one required to play Monday nights—the night of the JV games—as well. It was more than a little bruising to my ego to be playing JV when I was sure I was ready for the “big time,” so I decided to talk to the old man about it.

After rehearsing my speech several times, I marched into Mojo’s office after practice and made my case for why I didn’t deserve to be playing JV. I will never forget the way he shook his head and responded simply, “I’m trying to make you a better football player, dammit,” before returning to his game plan for the following week.

In that moment I sheepishly realized his goal hadn’t been to punish or embarrass me, but to help me develop into a better player by giving me more playing time on the field. My entire attitude about playing on Mondays changed from one of “have to” to “get to,” and I was able to see it as an opportunity rather than an imposition. The next game, I played the game of my life, and it wasn’t too long after that I was moved up to the Friday night lights for good. Turns out, Mojo’s tough love had made me a better football player (Dammit!) by helping me see I wasn’t where I needed to be AND giving me the opportunity to get better through repeated practice.

A Mindset of Thanks for (Radically Candid) Feedback

I wish I could say this lesson stuck with me for longer than that season, but honesty compels me to admit that dealing with criticism hasn’t been a strong suit most of my career. Fortunately for me, I was introduced to a trio of female thought leaders who have totally reframed my view of feedback, both as the receiver and the giver. Here’s a little of what they taught me. 

Mindset, by Dr. Carol Dweck, explains how each of us has adopted one of two mindsets about our potential. A “fixed” mindset tells us our intelligence and aptitude are innate and essentially unchangeable. People with a fixed mindset constantly feel the need to prove themselves worthy, and when they fail or receive criticism of any sort, it feels like a crushing indictment that they’re not smart or talented enough.

People with a “growth” mindset, on the other hand, believe they are a work in progress and see constructive criticism not as an indictment of who they are, but as a roadmap for who they can become.

Thanks for the Feedback, by Sheila Heen and her co-author Douglas Stone, takes the growth mindset and puts it to work. They contend that the real power of feedback is unleashed when recipients get behind the wheel of their performance discussions instead of sitting passively in the passenger’s seat.

Thanks for the Feedback suggests treating feedback discussions as gold-mining expeditions in which we can extract nuggets of information we need to improve and reach our goals and provides helpful tips on questions to ask and other techniques for doing so.

Radical Candor, authored by Kim Scott, is aimed at the other end of feedback conversations. Scott describes two essential elements for providing feedback in a way that leads to growth and development:

• Caring Personally means it’s not enough to care just about how someone performs their job. To grow others on your team, you have to care about them as human beings who have the capacity to make mistakes AND learn from them.

• Challenging Directly means having the courage to give people the information they need to succeed, rather than remaining silent out of a desire to avoid conflict or protect their feelings. You owe it to your people (and their colleagues) to tell them when their work isn’t good enough. If you want them to listen, though, you must first show you care about them as individuals. 

5 Suggestions for Using Feedback for Growth

These three books are wonderful sources of wisdom for how to take the painful noise of performance feedback and convert it into stimulation for growth, and I encourage you to read them all. In the meantime, here are 5 quick tips I’ve incorporated into my own life for giving and receiving better feedback.

1. Assume positive intent. A friend once shared a saying from his faith tradition that stuck with me, “the wicked take the truth to be hard”—meaning that none of us likes to hear criticism, especially when we know there’s truth in it. I try to keep this in mind whenever I receive constructive criticism and to remind myself to assume the person delivering it is coming from a desire to help rather than to harm. 

2. Hold on loosely, but don’t let go. At the same time, just because you assume positive intent doesn’t mean the other person has all the information. Take what they have to say into consideration as one set of data points from one person’s perspective, but don’t allow it to define you. Hold on loosely to the feedback so that it doesn’t crowd out all other perspectives (including your own), but don’t let go of it by dismissing it out of hand.

3. Good feedback is specific, timely and actionable. Upstream co-founder Paul Sinclair talks about how effective feedback is specific (“I liked the way you did ____; I would have done ____ this way instead);” timely (given regularly and close in time to the situation prompting the feedback rather than storing it up for once a year); and actionable (including specific ideas for steps a person can take to improve). Whether you are the one giving or receiving, use these three reminders to make feedback more powerful.

4. Model it yourself. If you are in any sort of leadership position, model the value of feedback by asking for it yourself, as in: “Is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?” When you get it, don’t be defensive and truthfully say, “thanks for the feedback.”

5. Understand that while it’s not personal to you, it’s always personal to them. Feedback is not a one-way street, and all of us are called on to give it and to receive it at different times. When receiving it, follow the Michael Corleone advice from The Godfather and look for whatever business value you can find from the feedback without taking it personally. When giving feedback, however, recognize the wisdom of another leader named Michael (Michael Scott from The Office) that “business is the most personal thing in the world” and deliver the feedback in a way that recognizes the humanity of the other person, while giving them the information they need to thrive.

What suggestions do you have for turning the noisy feedback in your life into your own personal soundtrack for growth? 

Mike Tooley is a Co-Founder with Upstream Principles LLC, a coaching and consulting firm dedicated to helping individuals, leaders, and teams go upstream to discover solutions for their leadership and employee development challenges. As a certified Leadership and Strengths Coach, Mike is committed to serve as a guide to help others discover, and live out, who they are designed to be.