You are constantly getting feedback from others about your performance at work. A client may be happy with their interaction. A colleague may walk away from a meeting upset. You get comments on a report you have written, an email discussing a presentation, or thoughts on the way you interact with colleagues.
In the best of worlds, the feedback you get is clear and easy to understand. Good feedback has three characteristics.
- It specifies the behavior you engaged in.
- It provides a clear and accurate assessment of the consequences of that behavior.
- It suggests actions you may take in the future that would be better suited to the occasion.
The further that the feedback you get deviates from this formulation, the harder it may be to understand the feedback or to recognize how it applies to you and what you should do about it.
When you get feedback you don’t understand, it is often valuable to get more information in order to ensure that you are able to learn from the experience and improve. I’ll dig into how to address the three components of good feedback in a moment, but first a word about asking questions related to feedback.
It is important to start any questions by pointing out that you are asking for clarification. Do not argue that the feedback wasn’t warranted. There is no easier way to ensure you never get feedback again than spending your time trying to convince someone that you did nothing wrong in the first place.
1. Ask about what went wrong
Sometimes the feedback you get is difficult to process because it is not clear about what you did wrong. That can happen because someone assumes you already know.
More often, though, it happens because someone criticizes your motivation rather than your actions. They will talk about your attitude or intent. Typically, when people try to assess your motivation or intent, they get it wrong, and so the description of the feedback doesn’t ring true for you.
Rather than arguing about your motivation or the situation, ask for a clearer description of what you did. To the extent that you believe your motivation or intent was different than what was described to you, it is okay to clarify your motivation, but you should start with a phrase like, “I can see how you would think I was trying to . . .” when discussing your motivation, so that you’re not trying to make the other person feel like they completely misread the situation.
2. Ask about the impact
At times—particularly early in your career—understanding the consequences of an action can be the most important part of the feedback you get. You may have done something that you thought was going to lead to a different outcome, but you are getting feedback that was clearly not the case.
In addition to understanding the consequences of your action, if you’re talking to a more knowledgeable colleague, it can also be helpful to get their sense of why the action had the impact it did. In order to get better at predicting the impact of your actions, it is important to understand the relationship between what you do and what happens next.
3. Ask about the future
You may have a clear sense of what you did and what happened as a result, and still feel like the feedback has not given you knowledge of what you should have done instead. Sometimes the person giving feedback simply hasn’t been clear about their recommendations for future actions. Other times, the person giving you feedback also does not know what should have been done instead.
When you are confused about what you should do differently in the future, you may go back to the person who gave you feedback for advice. However, you might also find a trusted mentor to review the situation and help you walk through other ways that you could have handled it. Often, someone further removed from the specifics (and perhaps someone with more experience than the individual who gave you feedback) can give you clearer advice on better alternatives for the future.