How to Give and Receive Corrective Feedback
When people disclose their reaction to your behavior, they are providing you with feedback, which is information that can help you determine how effectively you’re doing something. It allows you to become more aware of yourself and helps you become aware of how others perceive your behavior, as well as how your behavior affects them.
However, you are not only a receiver of feedback but are also a source of feedback. As such, giving feedback should be just as beneficial as receiving it.
Giving Feedback
When you give feedback, make sure that you give it in a non-demanding or non-threatening manner; otherwise, the other person ends up becoming defensive and unable to hear and correctly understand your message. Moreover, it is important that you let the person decide what to do with their behavior, that is, whether they want to continue with or change their behavior.
1. Direct your feedback on the person’s behavior and not on their personality. Refer to the person’s actions and not to their traits. For example, you can say to a student that he or she is “late in submitting the assignment” rather than saying that he or she is “lazy.”
2. Describe what occurred and refrain from being judgmental. Refer to the incident that occurred and not to your opinion about what is right and wrong. For example, a parent should say, “You forgot to take out the trash” rather than “You’re so unreliable.” Keep in mind that judgments are based on your own personal values while descriptions come from a more neutral stance.
3. Direct the feedback on a specific situation and not on abstract behavior. Feedback is more helpful when it is provided in relation to a situation that occurred at a specific time and place. For example, instead of saying, “You are uncooperative,” say “I have noticed that you have not provided us with your assigned part for the project that was due yesterday.”
4. Provide feedback about the current behavior and not about past behavior. Feedback is more helpful when immediately provided rather than having to recall something that has occurred in the past. For example, instead of saying, “You were inattentive last month,” say, “I asked you an important question at lunch today, but you didn’t respond. Is something wrong?”
5. Refrain from giving advice and instead share your feelings and perceptions. By sharing how you perceive or feel about the other person’s behavior, you are allowing them to decide for themselves how to use the feedback in relation to their behavior. On the contrary, giving them advice is like telling them what to do, which prevents them from deciding what their best course of action would be. For example, instead of saying, “You should be more careful with your comments,” say, “I noticed that Mary felt very uncomfortable with the comments you made in class this morning.”
6. Refrain from forcing feedback on other people. Keep in mind that you are providing feedback not for your own sake, that is, not for you to feel better, but to help the other person become more aware of themselves and to help them effectively relate to other people. As such, you should not force feedback on the receiver. For example, giving feedback in the middle of an argument may not be the best time for such. Although you would understandably be upset and would want to give feedback to ease your frustration, doing so at this time would not be very helpful as the other person would be too upset and defensive to understand and appreciate the feedback.
7. Do not give too much feedback at once. Doing so decreases the likelihood that the other person will understand and use it. When you do this, you are satisfying your needs more than helping the other person become aware of themselves.
8. Provide feedback about actions that the other person can change. For example, it’s not helpful to criticize people about their skin color or their lack of education. Although something can be done to obtain education, some people are just not capable of doing so because of reasons such as poverty.
Receiving Feedback
The following guidelines are based on the same principles as the ones for giving feedback:
1. Seek feedback regarding your behavior and not your personality.
2. Ask the other person to be descriptive and not judgmental with their feedback.
3. Ask the other person to focus the feedback on a particular situation and not on their broad or abstract impressions.
4. Ask for feedback on the immediate situation and not on those that have occurred in the past.
5. Clarify that you are seeking information about the other person’s feelings and perceptions and not for advice.
6. You don’t have to feel obliged to listen to the other person’s feedback if you don’t want to.
7. When you have received all the feedback that you can take for the moment, ask the other person to stop.
8. Reflect only on the feedback that pertains to things about yourself that you can control and change.
Giving and seeking feedback requires skill, courage, respect, understanding, and open-mindedness. Feedback signifies commitment and involvement to the relationship and when given in an effective manner at the right time, it can lead to self-awareness and self-improvement, as well as to the feeling of being valued.
References
Johnson, D. W., (2009). Reaching Out (10th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
