Authors Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen teach skills for receiving feedback in their book, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. Subtitled Even When It Is Off Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and, Frankly, You're Not in the Mood, the book strikes at the heart of why getting feedback can be uncomfortable, awkward, and even painful. Stone and Heen hit the troubles and triggers that surround the skills we need to accept opinions and advice from others.

00:15   Intro to Doug Stone, author of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

00:25   Founder of Triad Consulting Group and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School

02:00   Janet’s daughter-in-law read Feedback at Vivint (company) book group

02:20   Vivint employees share their feedback with Stone

02:40   Book includes good advice for feedback givers, too

02:50   How should we give feedback to those who don’t want to receive it?

04:20   Why Stone focuses on receiving rather than on giving feedback

06:00   Receiving feedback can be both really hard and really helpful; an active skill

07:00   Long subtitle explains the feedback conundrum

07:45   Most don’t really want feedback; life experiences tell us it can be painful or wrong

08:20   Receiving feedback not the same as taking feedback

09:30   Types of feedback: appreciation, coaching, evaluation (We need all three!)

09:45   We get emotionally tangled when we hear one kind and need another

10:45   Coaching: at the heart of feedback; helps us improve; can be specific

11:10   Evaluation: ranks or places us; comparative

13:00   Receivers should elicit from feedback givers the kind of feedback they need/want

15:10   Norman Rockwell’s triple self-portrait included at end of book

16:00   How to amplify our own blind spots

17:00   Paradox – think we know ourselves best, yet feedback often reflection of unknown parts

17:45   Unbeknownst to us, body language and facial expressions can belie our true selves

19:15   Increase awareness of our silent messages by actively soliciting help from others

21:20   Use language that elicits the precise type of feedback you’re seeking

24:40   Genuine, truthful feedback can jeopardize relationships

25:10   Book’s teachings can give voice, confidence, and power to strengthen relationships

25:30   Asking for workplace feedback can make you easier to work with

27:15   Feedback can enhance our “growth mindset” (Carol Dweck)

28:45   Unclear feedback (coaching vs. evaluation) – receiver can choose which to hear

29:45   Coaching feedback easier to take in than evaluation

30:45   “Constructive criticism”

31:20   Two kinds of coaching: how to improve you and how to improve a relationship with you

34:00   How to avoid the “Google bias”

38:50   Receiving feedback requires a degree of courage

40:45   Reframing feedback makes it easier to receive

41:30   In business, make the topic of feedback easy to discuss

44:30   Recommendation: True Colors Card Game: What Do Your Friends Really Think of You?

BUY Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

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