Coaching for Leaders

143: How to Get Way Better at Accepting Feedback, with Sheila Heen

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Sheila Heen: Thanks for the Feedback

Author with Douglas Stone of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well*

Author with Douglas Stone and Bruce Patton of the New York Times Business Bestseller Difficult Conversations*

Feedback sits at the core of two human needs:

  • Our need to get better
  • Our need to be accepted, respected, and loved for how we are now

    • “Who’s giving the feedback is often a louder message than what they’re saying.” -Sheila Heen

    The six steps:

    1. Know your tendencies

    • Baseline (or set point): a level of satisfaction that you gravitate towards in the absence of life events
    • Swing: how far positive or negative feedback knocks you off your baseline
    • Recovery: how long it takes you to come back to your baseline
    • Recovery speed can be different for positive and negative feedback
    • Understanding your profile can help you dismantle your distortions
    • Also, this helps you to be more empathetic to others who have different styles than you do

      • 2. Disentangle the “what” from the “who”

      • If the feedback is wise, it shouldn’t matter who delivers it (but it does).
      • Solicit feedback from the people who you find difficult to work with

        • 3. Sort towards coaching

        • Three kinds of feedback
          • Appreciation: sometimes when people ask for more feedback, they really want more of this
          • Coaching: helping you get better at something
          • Evaluation: where you rank or stand
          • Sheila uses this with her children to speak about their grades and what it says about what they can change
          • Separating these three things is helpful, since evaluation is very loud and people don’t often hear anything else

            • 4. Unpack the feedback

            • Most of what we hear comes in vague labels.
            • It requires you as a receiver to be a more active participant.

              • 5. Ask for just one thing

              • “What’s one thing you see me doing (or failing to do) that holds me back?”

                • 6. Engage in small experiments

                • “I don’t believe that receiving feedback well means that you have to take the feedback.” -Sheila Heen
                • It’s hard to know if feedback is helpful until we try it out.
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