If for one reason or another
(fear of punishment, risk of
losing a relationship you’re
not ready to lose, lack of
confidence in your skills, etc.)
you think you don’t want to
try to be more open and use
more effective feedback
behaviors, then don’t. But pay
attention to the choice you
are making – there may be
some important learning in it
for you. Or, you may want to
test out some feedback in
very small increments, to see
what happens.
n The 9 criteria are useful to you
as a receiver of feedback as
well as a giver. You may
decide that you can’t/won’t
give much feedback to
another in a given
relationship. OK. But do try to
use what you’ve learned as a
means of “managing”
feedback you receive. If
someone tells you you’re
being obnoxious, you may
elect to be hurt or angry, or
you may choose to be curious
and ask for descriptive
information: “What am I doing
that causes you to say that?”
You can also try to help
others “own” their feelings,
rather than allowing them to
shuffle them off onto others
(“people are talking…..”). You
can help the sender explore
his/her feelings (active
listening is useful here) or
clarify for you (and perhaps
for him/herself) the
consequences of the behavior
being discussed. In short, if
you know something about
effective feedback skills (and
if you can avoid getting into a
defensive posture) you may
be able to be helpful to the
person giving you feedback,
so that the two of you are
16
problem solving rather than
attacking/defending. This will
help you too, in that it will get
you much clearer feedback or
it will indicate what “game”
the sender is playing.
n Don’t become a feedback
addict. Sometimes people get
excited about new learnings
and use them all the time in
every place. This can wear
thin very quickly. Not every
event needs to be worked
through. Not every utterance
needs to be perfect.
Remember to allow for some
slippage in your relationships;
take small risks, be willing to
“approximate,” and see what
happens. Above all, don’t use
others as guinea pigs on
which to practice your skills.
n The feedback process works
best when it involves people
who are – at least in that
interaction – equals. If one
person is “up” (dominate,
faultless, containing all virtue)
and the other “down”
(passive, the culprit or villain
of the piece) it is likely to turn
into one of a number of
games, as the “down” person
attempts (usually without
realizing it) to equalize the
power between them and to
gain what might be called
psychological parity. If you
can recognize that what
began as a feedback
interaction between equals
has moved to a “helpless me”
or “awful me” or “you’re one
too” or “but you don’t
understand,” or any of a
variety of behaviors that might
be lumped under the term
“attack/defense,” you may be
able to alter the interaction’s
direction by having both you
and the other person look at
what’s happening. Note well:
both you and the other
person. For as long as the
burden is on the other, you’re
maintaining or increasing your
advantage and promoting an
escalation of the power
equalization efforts.
By now you may be muttering, “but
it’s so complicated; and it sounds like
hard work; and it also sounds risky.”
Yes. And the same can be said of
many other things that are important
to us. It is, I believe, a matter of
valuing. If I value clear, open
relationships, if I value the others
with whom I share those
relationships, and – most important, I
think – if I value myself in those
relationships, then I may find that I
have no choice but to do the hard
work, take the risks, suffer the
losses, and be enriched by the gains.