Rethinking Gift-Wrapped Feedback

“Feedback is a gift,” goes the old saying, implying that we should gratefully accept every piece of advice or criticism that comes our way. The question is, is all feedback truly a gift worth receiving? Imagine if your neighbor continuously filled your garage with unsolicited “gifts” they thought would benefit you. You’d likely feel overwhelmed and you’d be well within your rights to say stop. So why do we expect people to accept our feedback without question and is it not reasonable for them to say, “no thanks”?

Feedback Does Help Us Grow… sometimes

Good feedback can help us grow. We use feedback to adjust our course, to learn what works and what doesn’t. Feedback, and preferably, shortening your time to learn, is a vital concept in helping you, your teams, and your organizations grow. However, bad feedback is bad feedback and won’t help growth - it may outright prevent growth.

We shouldn’t fear giving feedback but we should be conscious of its quality, its frequency, and its motivation.

One: Feedback Quality

A lot of literature exists on techniques for providing good, effective feedback. Most resources touch on roughly these same ideas: Build trust first, be specific and actionable, balance the negative with the positive, avoid personal attacks, remove bias, and offer a solution. These are not simple skills. It takes a lot of practice to master these skills. This means there may be times you’re not ready to give feedback to certain people in certain situations about certain topics.

Should feedback be limited to verbal or written communication in a direct manner? We should ask ourselves, are there times we can indirectly provide feedback by demonstrating what good looks like? Could this form of feedback convey the message more clearly for certain situations? Could refraining from acknowledging it as feedback be even more helpful?

For example, imagine Person A is leading a meeting, but they often interrupt others, not allowing the discussion to flow naturally. Instead of directly telling Person A that they need to create more space for others to speak, Person B decides to take a different approach. Person B invites Person A to observe them leading a meeting. During this meeting, Person B deliberately stays silent at key moments when they could easily jump in, allowing the conversation to progress on its own. By doing this, Person B subtly demonstrates to Person A the importance of giving others room to contribute, offering indirect feedback on how to improve their facilitation skills.

In order to give feedback, we should practice and learn how to do it well. Just as we would not fly a Boeing 747 for our first flight, but instead, start learning on a small Cessna 152, we should start small when giving feedback. We should be asking, am I in a position to give good quality feedback in this situation? Would direct or indirect feedback be better quality?

Two: Feedback Strain

Negative feedback has been shown to cause the same responses in the brain as what humans perceive as threats. This Strategy + Business article explains how, when receiving negative feedback, humans essentially “want out” of the situation. It’s human nature and absolutely reasonable to feel that way.

Nicole Lipkin is an organizational psychologist. In her justluminate.com article, she defines feedback fatigue as:

Feedback fatigue occurs when someone gets mentally drained from receiving too much negative feedback.

A person too frequently placed into a situation perceived as a threat, even when rationally challenged to recognize the situation as a growth opportunity, can tire out. It’s fatiguing and the benefits initially intended won’t materialize.

It may go a step further, however, and not be limited only to negative feedback. When positive feedback is given too often, this too can become fatiguing. It also normalizes the feedback, and, much like inflation, will devalue it. It may raise questions as to the motive behind such feedback. Why are they so amazed by this? All I did was save a file!

Unexpected and surprising negative feedback can increase the flight or fight response in a person. A lot of research has been done to show that unpredicted threats (to which we can associate negative feedback) often leads to a greater amount of anxiety. The timing of feedback and the pre-warning or preparation time given to the recipient should be made clear.

The lesson here is to consider how frequently you are providing feedback. Might it be fatiguing for the recipient? You may find there are times where it is better to simply hold back, particularly on more trivial elements of feedback, where improvement opportunities might not be that significant. You can also consider switching up the form of feedback, from written/verbal in a direct manner, to indirectly providing feedback. Consider whether or not you’ve given a good indication that feedback can be expected. This may be done directly, or it might be implied by routine - for example, after every 1:1, a manager might be expected to provide some feedback.

Three: Motivation for Giving Feedback

Feedback is often viewed as something to be appreciated, viewed as a gift in itself, and with the sentiment that ‘it is the thought that counts’. In BNI’s Feedback is a Gift article, its said that, “if someone is taking the time to give you honest and constructive feedback, they care.”

One could challenge this by suggesting that in some situations, people might, even subconsciously, offer feedback driven by ego rather than a genuine desire to help. What better way to show you are more powerful than to deliver critique?

Just as we invite people to consider the motive for speaking in the Idiot in the Room model by asking, “Am I trying to impress or genuinely contribute?”, one should be honest with themselves in answering the same question when giving feedback.

Conclusion

The intent of this article is not to stop the practice of giving feedback. Instead, when giving feedback, it can be helpful to pause and reflect on the following questions to ensure your approach is thoughtful and effective:

• Quality: Is my feedback specific, actionable, and constructive? Would a different approach, such as indirect feedback, be more effective in this situation?

  
  

• Frequency: Am I offering feedback too often? Could this be overwhelming or fatiguing for the recipient?

  
  

• Motivation: What is my true intent in giving this feedback? Am I genuinely trying to help, or could there be an underlying motive at play?