How to Give and Receive Feedback in Your Relationships
“Apply self-regulation and accept feedback”
David Holmgren - one of the founders of Permaculture
My interest in being able to give and receive feedback well stems from my desire to support human relationships thrive rather than dive! I have painfully witnessed well-intentioned attempts to offer feedback that land in the other as criticism, blame or be more a cry for empathy than an offer of feedback.
Feedback as a skill
Sometimes attempts at giving feedback lack observable information or skill. Mostly they are still in the “who is to blame” paradigm rather than the “let’s learn and discover” one. I am sure I have done my fair share of contributing to this in the past myself!
On top of this, most of us have grown up in a culture of blame, criticism, reward and punishment and have a deficit of feeling appreciated and valued, so receiving feedback can be very vulnerable. We are apt to hear it as blame even when blame was not intended.
If we want to increase connection and intimacy with others as well as grow and learn together then we need to do a couple of things:
Increase our capacity to receive feedback – even when it is given to us ‘badly’.
Grow our skill and ability to give feedback well.
So what is feedback?
The dictionary definition is “Information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement.” Given this, I guess historically, feedback is more familiar to us in a business context, but what about all of our other relational interactions?
My preferred definition is NVC Trainer, Miki Kashtan’s “Information about impact”.
The Relational Field
Feedback is a way for the relationship to learn and grow - and therefore belongs to the relationship or ‘relational field’ rather than being ‘yours’ or ‘mine’. When we have an agreed culture of feedback giving and receiving, honesty and trust grows as well as closeness, connection and intimacy.
If instead, all we know to do when something doesn’t work for us is to criticise, decide whose fault it is and point the finger, then relationships tend to degenerate.
Think for yourself how quickly your heart closes and your defenses rise when you experience blame and judgment. It is likely that your desire to change diminishes and you tend towards covering up errors or mistakes when you hear criticism rather than being given specific feedback with an aim to contribute. In these instances, the potential enquiry and discovery about each other that could have happened is sadly lost.
A personal story
It took my husband and I a lot of pain and challenge before we managed to begin giving feedback to each other that wasn’t couched in blame and we have learned so much in the process.
Now instead of him seeing me as ‘unaware” or ‘not considering his needs’ or me judging him as ‘over-critical’, ‘not understanding’ or ‘unreasonable’, I can now see just how sensitive he is to his environment and how much more he tends to notice and see such that he shows me all sorts of wildlife that I wouldn’t otherwise see.
I tend to ‘zone out’ unnecessary (to me) stimuli. He can now see that my ability to ‘zone out’ has advantages to the both of us such as me coping with children’s mess more easily or me being willing to tolerate his different radio choices to mine – and even the proverbial toilet seat being left up ;-)!
What stops us giving feedback?
There are many reasons why we don’t give feedback.
Fear: people have reported fear being a big reason - fear of the relationship deteriorating further, that they couldn’t handle the conflict or that the other couldn’t handle the feedback.
Clear: Sometimes we are not clear on the reasons why something isn’t working for us. Or we might conclude that it is not a big deal anyway.
What reasons might you have for not giving feedback?
What do we tend to do instead of feedback?
Without understanding what else we could do, our main choices remain our learnt habitual ones such as:
Saying nothing, whilst maintaining silent judgment (maybe gossiping with friends later)
Avoiding the person in question
Giving positive non-specific feedback and avoiding saying what didn’t work for us (in the hope they will get the message)
Giving critical (non-specific) feedback and forgetting to mention what did work for us
Silently or vocally blaming, criticising or judging the other for not being good enough in some way
Arguing in an attempt to get the other to understand our point of view
Feedback as a gift
So if we want to give feedback in a way that is more likely to improve the relational field, what are some things to consider?
The first is to think about the purpose. Remember Miki’s definition of feedback: “information about impact”. We want to give the other person some information about what is happening or happened to us in relation to what has been said or done. Perhaps we want to increase shared learning, connection or understanding
You could see it as offering a gift to the relationship.
First steps to developing the skill
Begin by connecting with yourself.
Notice your thoughts with curiosity - they are likely in the form of judgments, criticism or blame. Silently welcome them as “information about impact”
Be curious about what is happening inside you -the impact that this person’s behaviour is having on you - Are you feeling irritated, annoyed, joyful, excited, impatient? Are you are losing interest, shutting down, becoming overwhelmed or bored, sensing gratitude, learning, gaining fresh insights…
Wonder about your needs - met or unmet… Maybe you are wanting connection? Learning? Mutuality? Collaboration? Understanding? Space?
Check on your reason for wanting to say something – if you are feeling triggered and very emotional it may be that you need empathy from someone else first before you can come back and offer feedback
Then there is the moment where you decide to speak. Here are some suggestions.
If you need to interrupt, do it with kindness
Name the reason for speaking, Why does it matter? (eg. I can’t take any more information in) What is the purpose of interruption? (eg is it to do with connection, shared understanding, learning, mutuality, trust…?)
Ask for their willingness to hear what you have to say
Lead with appreciation if you can (perhaps acknowledging what they are trying to offer).
Explain what is going on for you – ‘Information about impact’ - (be ready and aware that this may well bring up vulnerability for them as it could touch on their own core beliefs about themselves (eg “Oh no, I have done something wrong, I’m too…”)Complete with a question such as "how is this for you to hear?” or "I’d love to check whether this is landing OK with you?"
Then be open to hearing what the other says and to dialogue
A real example of giving feedback
Recently, My friend Nia (name changed to preserve anonymity) was sharing some really interesting thoughts and ideas with me. At some point I noticed myself feeling irritable and realized I had lots of reflections on what she had said so far but there seemed no space for me to say anything and I was no longer able to take on board any new ideas.
"I just need to interrupt you for a moment because I notice I have stopped being able to take in what you are saying. Are you open to hearing some feedback from me before you make your next point? ...
I am really enjoying the comments you are making but I notice that after a while my own thoughts and reflections about the topic start crowding out my ability to listen. I would love to be able to make some comments about what has been spoken so far before we move on. How would that be for you?”
She was able to receive this quite easily - went into a momentary self-blame but quickly recovered and we agreed that if it happened again she was happy for me to flag it as she really wanted to hear my reflections too - she just forgot to notice sometimes. We both benefitted from the risk I took of upsetting her.
And finally a few words about receiving feedback
Acknowledge that it can be hard to hear that what you have said or done has affected the other in some way – especially if it touches on some core self-belief of yours
Do your best to step out of the right/wrong paradigm and see if you can hold curiosity about your impact on the other person with a willingness to learn
Watch for fight/flight/freeze type responses in yourself. If they kick in (and if possible) you could have a stock phrase ready such as “I’m not able to receive this right now, could we agree a different time to talk about this?”
Recognise that it can take a long time to increase our capacity to receive feedback
To summarise
Feedback belongs to ‘the relational field’ - the ‘we’ – not to ‘you’ or ‘I’ individually
It is “information about impact”
Its purpose is to learn, grow, improve and deepen connections
It is vital ‘lifeblood’ if we want to collaborate and cooperate with others
It does not include blame (although it may include accountability but that is beyond the scope of this article)
References:
I owe deep gratitude to Marshall Rosenberg for his work on Nonviolent Communication. You can find out more about NVC here www.nvc-uk.com and www.cnvc.org
Miki Kashtan is a prominent teacher of NVC, and one of my mentors. She has written a lot about feedback in relationships www.thefearlessheart.org
David Holmgren’s Permaculture design principles https://knowledgebase.permaculture.org.uk/principles