Feedback For Growth: What You Need To Know

Feedback. A thing we are scared to receive. A vehicle for growth we fail to perceive. Another instance where human psychology serves to deceive. A message we aren’t sure how to conceive. Words which can put us in disbelief. Conceiving, receiving, and perceiving feedback right turns it into a priceless tool. You won’t enjoy what you hear. Discomfort will envelop your body. But you will gain from the experience.

Feedback Isn’t Made Equal

“Critical assessment of a process or activity or of their results.” says Onelook. Not bad. Not a definitive definition. Plenty for general understanding. Critical assessment are they keywords. Straight negativity or positivity doesn’t qualify as critical assessment—ask Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, or other toxic threads. Piles of unthoughtful comments are not feedback. Undeserved praise served to manipulate is not either. Nor is a sad, angry, impatient, and/or childish remark.

Genuine feedback must meet the requirements those two words place on it’s shoulders. Critically assessing someone is thoughtful, thorough, and difficult work. It isn’t merely recognizing a flaw and pointing it out. As the word infers, feedback should provide (feed) something of value (back) to the person. It has to be conceived by the giver in a way that can be perceived by the receiver. I’m sure you know from experience that just telling people they suck doesn’t help.

Destruction, Commence!

On the other hand, you intuitively know feedback in the right place at the right time helps. Changes lives. Unveils flaws. Shows areas to improve. Opens doors of opportunity. Sadly, most people (a) lack the skill, (b) are too lazy, (c) don’t possess sufficient self-control, (d) do not care enough, or all the mentioned, to put forth feedback. The most ninety-nine percent end up doing is throwing unneeded and sometimes harmful opinions out their mouths. Deep thought about someone’s situation, circumstances, and underlying events before spilling the porridge is rare.

What happens then? Frankly, if you wanted to, it’d take you up to ten minutes to put the pieces together. Misunderstandings. Frustration. Conflict. Romantic, friend, and familial relationships are harmed. Business partnerships break. Improperly given feedback has the power to destroy. Everything and everyone in its way collapses. Positive moods are annihilated. Motivation is extinguished. People get derailed. What was good turns bad. Optimism into pessimism. Enthusiasm into apathy. Confidence into anxiety.

No Feedback > Bad Feedback

Therefore it’s clear that while feedback is terrific, it has to be administered the right way. The so-called tightrope you walk whenever critically assessing someone. Feedback, constructive versus destructive. Constructively make it to the other side, and you’ve delivered a touching message which could turn a person’s life around. Slip and get devoured by the destructive abyss, and you’ve only hurt a person emotionally and made them more convinced of their opinions. Careful. Its life-and-death. Really. Suicides often stem from bullying—and bullying is a gold-standard example of destructive feedback.

Navigating life, you’ll be in both boats—the giver or receiver—of feedback in domains personal and professional. The art of feedback is about giving or receiving value. Know-how is needed in either case. Believe it or not, even the best of constructive feedback can rot into its destructive counterpart if received wrong. Happens too often. Grown-up babies garner feedback from mature adults, misunderstand it, take it as sheer negativity, and so on. Not Gucci.

Constructive Feedback: Helpful

So in terms of feedback, there are two areas to concentrate on: (1) being constructive as a giver, and (2) being open-minded and accepting as a receiver. Neither area is easy. Yet there is no other way. If you don’t practice being constructive, you’re opinionated. If you aren’t open to critique, you’re self-sufficient. Nobody wants to be the despised asshole. Bad habits make you him or her. Let us build good ones.

What does it mean to be constructive? You want to help. If that’s enough for you, get out of here and do something productive. Constructive feedback is improvement and development-centered. The only goal is guidance toward a better outcome. Actionable insights or ideas are supplied for the receiver to immediately use. A positive, neutral, or supportive tone is used.

Conversational Wrecking Ball

In contrast, destructive feedback is criticism centered on fault-finding. No actionable steps to take whatsoever. Often harsh, personal, and more about venting one’s frustration than helping. Demotivates the recipient and damages relationships instantaneously. Surely you can picture a furious father or mother, boss, or co-worker being really destructive. Mouth wide open. Yelling. Saliva flying in slow motion. Table goes bang. Nothing is solved!

When you’re constructive, your aim is to be useful. You focus on what can be done. You encourage learning and resilience. You tell people what they’re doing right. Together, you foster safety, trust, and growth for the other party. Whereas when you’re destructive, you’re useless or harmful. You use threats and manipulation to get people doing. You attack character, wants, needs, opinions, abilities, and other traits and attributes. Tallied up, you cultivate an atmosphere of negativity, hopelessness, and futility.

Construct, Don’t Destruct—Examples

Aspire to be constructive. Some of the upsides (constructive): motivates improvement and learning, builds and strengthens relationships, helps maintain engagement and productivity, encourages problem-solving and ownership. Takes effort. Can be perceived as patronizing if done wrong. And, some respond badly even to perfect feedback. Still, spare no sweat. Weigh the alternative (destructive): demotivates and diminishes self-esteem, strains relationships and can lead to resentment, reduces willingness to collaborate, and harms long-term productivity.

Examples, destructive feedback:

• “Your presentation was a mess; I couldn’t follow a thing.”; “Your writing is confusing and disorganized.”; “Your work is always full of errors."; “I don’t get what you’re trying to contribute to this project.”; “This report is a mess. I don’t even know where to start."; “You’re always interrupting everyone in meetings."; “You’re too stubborn to listen to anyone else, and that’s why you keep failing."

Examples, constructive feedback:

• "I appreciate your enthusiasm in meetings, but giving others a bit more time to speak could enhance group collaboration.”; "Your ability to think on your feet is great, but spending a little more time planning could make your decisions even stronger.”; "Your teamwork is great, but I think you could take more initiative in group discussions.”; "Your presentation was clear, but you might want to slow down in some parts to help the audience absorb the information.”; "Your creativity is impressive, but aligning more with the project goals would make your contributions even more impactful.”; "You’re doing well on your deadlines, though double-checking for errors could save time on revisions.”

Constructive Feedback Habits

As we know, human lives rely on habits. Usual behaviors. Feed these, starve those. Constructive habits: empathy (try to understand the person); active listening (listen, don’t just hear); specificity (give practical advice); follow-up (inquire people on their progress. Destructive habits: reactiveness (emotionally triggered “feedback”); generalization (giving broad critique, not practical steps); blame; negativity bias (pointing only at what’s wrong); mockery (humor or sarcasm to belittle the other person). Think: which do you see in yourself and which deserve more attention?

What about the receiving end? Constructive listening. Being a good listener is a crucial part of the giver-receiver feedback relationship. The foundation: active listening, clarifying questions, empathy and validation, resisting the urge to interrupt, paraphrasing and summarizing, neutrality, and focus on the issue. Improving at both transmitting feedback and receiving it takes work. Hard work.

About Listening

Good communication starts with hearing what the other person is saying. Actively listen by not planning your response and focusing on your speaking partner’s words. To have the full picture, ask the person to clarify via open-ended questions. Even if you disagree, acknowledge their feelings or viewpoint. Shut up while they’re speaking. After, summarize and ask if you got it right. Avoid judgment or taking sides on what’s right and wrong; take a neutral stance for cooperation. And, when someone is critical of you, separate their opinion from your self-worth. Concentrate on what’s being said, not how it makes you feel.

Final Comments

In the end, feedback is a complex topic with considerations on both the giving and receiving ends. Bad feedback harms. Good feedback helps. Though bad and good feedback can be taken in the right or wrong way. Feedback is in the eyes of the beholder. Constructive or destructive, good or bad. ”Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.” said Yehuda Berg.