[00:00:00] This is episode 285, and we’re going to talk about what to do and how to respond when you just got some tough feedback.

Here are the two questions. This podcast answers. One, how do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? And two, how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted, 

although the competition and the expectations get bigger. This show with a manager track podcast will provide the answers. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. 

I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is seen as a source of contribution, connection and personal fulfillment. And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead. So everyone wins and gross. In the show, you’ll learn how to think, communicate and act as a confident and competent leader. 

You know, you can be. 

Welcome to this episode of The Manager Track podcast. Today, in this episode, we’re gonna talk about something that I see quite often when I debrief 360 feedbacks [00:01:00] or in coaching conversations when someone shares that they gotten feedback.

And the question is, okay, what do you do now? So recall a situation when you last received some feedback and not the like, oh, it’s a nuance. Here’s a little thing that you should be doing differently, but something that felt like, oh man, that’s a real blind spot, or That kind of hurt, or when you felt it was unfair feedback.

Remember at that moment

maybe it was when your boss pulled you aside after a meeting. Maybe it came through a performance review. Maybe a peer said something about you that caught you off guard. And now remember how you internally responded to that feedback.

Were you sitting there replaying in your head what was just said? Were you feeling defensive? Were you maybe feeling embarrassed? Were you feeling some shame or maybe some anger? Most of us have any of those kind of emotions or reactions going on inside of our heads.

Now the [00:02:00] question though is what do you really do with this? How do you respond out loud to other people and even if you totally believe in feedback being a really good thing, buy into the idea of having a growth set. We are simply not wired to receive feedback about us or our performance the same way that we would receive.

Like we so often say like a gift. A gift is really happy. I feel really good about this whole exchange and I feel valued and cared for and considered feedback just doesn’t feel that way, and that is totally human. Even if you intellectually completely understand the importance of being receptive, the growth mindset and all of that, the instant reaction.

Isn’t for debate and we’re not gonna talk about that. I’m not trying to tell anyone that they should feel differently. Including myself. The question now though [00:03:00] is how long do you stay in this initial instinctual reaction? Which again comes from how our brain is structured and built, and the fact that feedback is often perceived as a social threat, and in our brains, the same areas get activated when we perceive a social threat.

As when we perceive a physical threat. So same areas get activated, hence the quick defense, the, vulnerability that we experience. But how quickly are you able to identify what’s going on and then change and turn around to how you look at the feedback and how you respond outwardly in your interactions with other people, including the person who gave you the feedback.

Because what I really wanna talk about and sort of highlight and with this episode is that what you do with tough feedback matters as much, if not more than the feedback itself. [00:04:00] So your response to criticism will shape your career and your reputation in many cases, faster than almost anything else. And this is something many of us are not aware of the risk that we are constantly carrying of responding ineffectively to feedback. And there are different ways that this impacts us in the future, and we’ll get to that.

But I wanna may emphasize this one more thing. The feedback that you’re getting, the thing that actually didn’t go as well or the thing that you could be doing better is as for you to like be Feedback. I’ve heard plenty times when HR all leader said to me. The fact that they did this is one thing, but then how they responded to the feedback is a whole other thing.

And that second thing is almost worse. And with this short episode here, I’m gonna get to the, the core here of what [00:05:00] to pay attention to. But again, we’re not trying to not feel this instinctual sort of gut reaction of like, ah, I don’t like the feedback.

We’re gonna look at how to quickly turn around and make sure that you are managing this risk really well and respond effectively because if you start defending, deflecting or dismissing all of that is going to hurt you more. Then that temporary relief of feeling like you know, you’ve been wronged and you’re doing the right thing, or there’s some kind of righteousness that you’re demonstrating.

So in essence, we’re gonna talk about how to handle feedback when it’s hard to hear the kind of feedback that makes you want to crawl under your desk or fire off a defensive email and hit send right away. Many of us have been there, myself included.

Then I’m going to give you mindsets, tools, and some exact language that you can use to turn that tough feedback into something that actually moves you forward instead of knocking you down and maintains. Your reputation as [00:06:00] someone who’s open to feedback and a learner and someone who wants to grow and elevate and is ready for leadership not aero that because of your response to the feedback.

Okay, let’s get into it first about how you are choosing to see feedback, because there are ultimately two roads that you can choose here, and which road you choose will kind of determine whether you grow or you stay stuck or maybe even erode some trust in the process. Road one. Let’s go there. First is the defensive mindset. This is where we treat feedback like a personal attack.

 and maybe you defend, you argue, or you shut down. Again, maybe you smile and nod, but internally you are writing this person off forever and you don’t wanna work with them again, or you just don’t trust them anymore.

And this first road of the defensiveness or the, the reaction is [00:07:00] driven by those instincts because the criticism hurt, that’s not per se the problem. But the problem is that you stayed on that road. You let yourself continue, you know, you hurt, and then you kept going down that path.

Ultimately, not only is there an immediate consequence if you’re reacting that way and how other people interpret that, but also you might get to the place where nobody wants to give you feedback. Which means that you become the person who is expanding blind spots.

‘ cause no one’s help build greater awareness. You’re not gonna get feedback, which is the biggest and best tool for improvement again, this may sound like, okay, not rocket science, common sense obviously, but let’s look around and check ourselves in the context of work and even observe our colleagues and notice how often we get feedback and then. Turn it around on the other person. The other person’s the problem.

They’re rude. They don’t know what’s going on. They’re [00:08:00] disrespectful. They don’t know how stretched I am, how little time I have for this. All kinds of defenses. This happens all the time. Even if we intellectually totally get the growth mindset. , Okay, but let’s go back.

This mindset, this growth mindset treats feedback as input, it’s also just one person’s experience of you. It might be accurate and helpful, it might be skewed, but either way, it’s a so it’s worth at least having a look at it. Thinking about it’s a chance to grow. It’s something that they saw that I didn’t see, or that they believe, and I don’t believe and because how feedback is perceived and what it activates in our brain, we kind of can’t leave it up to chance to just hope that we will have the best possible reaction.

We need to be somewhat conscious about this, and most of us, to a degree, we learned that throughout growing up and then in our careers, that we have sort of this professional manner, professional manner [00:09:00] where we check ourselves right before we react and before we hit send.

But when the feedback gets tough, this is often when we. Forget about that because how it triggers us is so strong that this professionalism goes. So imagine someone giving you tough feedback tomorrow.

How would the best version of you show up to that feedback? Who do you want to be in that moment?

Your answer is probably something along the lines of, you wanna be the person who can handle it. The person doesn’t crumble, the person doesn’t lash out, but the person who stays curious instead of defensive so that anchor phase might be even if it stings, because again,

the goal is for it to sting and for me or you to still be strong enough to hear it. To know that the discomfort that I’m experiencing in that moment is not the enemy. The discomfort is just a [00:10:00] feeling of this change happening. Something that I thought was going well or didn’t know. Suddenly, I am confronted with the fact that this did happen.

This did impact someone. This wasn’t well perceived. And

it’s change that you’re adjusting to. So if you think ahead of who you want to be in that situation, you visualize this. Ideally right now as we’re talking about it, you have like a visual of how you would respond. You see yourself act. You can feel what it would be like to be in the situation That’s already a big step ahead and means you’re doing more to prepare yourself for tough feedback than most people.

And so I wanna quickly say something about this idea that feedback it to be like a gift, not per se, wrong. ’cause it is in, in a way a gift. It’s gonna help you in the future.

It’s just that the way feedback lands is a lot more like manure it. Smells bad. It’s unpleasant to deal with. It’s kind of like a bad experience when it happens, but you know [00:11:00] that it’s ultimately a good thing. You are dealing with it.

You work with it because it helps the plants grow. So if you imagine this was just manure coming my way. Yes, I’m not liking this. I get it, but I also know that manure will ultimately help me get better. And so the question is, how much will I fight this manure and will try to like wash it off me?

Or how much am I willing to just smell the disgusting scent for a minute, let it all sink in, and then be done with it and use it as like fertilize and fuel to grow and develop stronger in the future.

Feedback truly is like that number one tool for improvement. So if we wash it off, shake it off, we’re totally missing the point of feedback. Even by the way, when it was delivered ineffectively, even if it seems. Inappropriate or unfair even then. So we’re not just talking about the like properly well-served [00:12:00] feedback on the sailor platter.

We’re talking about feedback or manure. That we stumped on us in a friendly way or not so friendly way. We’re gonna just receive it as that because if someone gave you feedback, in most cases. Not in all cases, but often someone cared enough to say something. Most people just stay quiet. They maybe stop inviting you to meetings.

They stop considering you for opportunities. They write you off and

move on. So the people who don’t get much feedback, there aren’t necessarily the people who have it all figured out. They might even be ignored ’cause people don’t care enough or they’re too intimidating to be helped, right? So they recheck the feedback too much and that place isn’t a good place to be.

That’s the place where you’re gonna slow down your growth. So when someone does give you feedback, even if clunky awkward, like just bad communication, try to still see it as a signal. They’re still in [00:13:00] the game with you. They haven’t given up on you. They still care. They still wanna work with you or help you or at least increase or improve the collaboration or communication between the two of you now I don’t wanna say feedback delivery doesn’t matter.

It does matter. And especially if you think about the feedback back that you give, I wanna make sure I’m not giving you a car plunge here for you to go give feedback to anyone in any way because you’re thinking, well, they’re gonna have to take it and do something with it no matter how I deliver it.

Now, if someone gives you feedback in a terrible way. If they’re condescending or vague or just kind of meme in the process, that is definitely going to impact the way that we’re receiving it, the way that we can then act on it. All totally fair, and really important when we are in control, when we can decide how we give feedback.

But the reality is we’re gonna be working with people, and people give us feedback in however they wanna give feedback. [00:14:00] So it’s important to not get too distracted by sort of the packaging that you then disqualify and dismiss the actual signal, the actual thing that you got, so in such a situation, whenever you do get feedback, ask yourself.

What are they really trying to say underneath this? So strip away the tone, strip away the awkwardness and ask yourself, what is really the core message? Why are they saying this? Why are they asking for this change? For example, what is it that they truly want? Because if you can do this, if you can extract yourself from the situation, look at it as a signal, you get the benefit of the feedback without letting someone else’s communication style dismiss this data point, this signal.

So now that we talked about the different path of how to respond to feedback, why we do have this initial negative reaction and then how to make sure that the [00:15:00] messenger, the way that the feedback is delivered.

Isn’t getting in the way, whether it’s delivered on a silver platter or it really gets stumped on you, and pretty much like the manure in a not so pleasant and stylish way. It’s a signal. Now that we’ve covered that, let’s not talk about

how your response to feedback shapes your reputation more than the original behavior may have done. I’m gonna give an example here. Let’s say you interrupted people in a meeting. That’s the behavior. Now, someone gives you feedback about it.

How you respond to that feedback is what that person who gave you the feedback will actually remember. If you respond by explaining why you interrupted or defending yourself or justify it, or you deflected, well, so and so interrupts way more than I do, or, well, that’s just my communication style.

I like it fast paced that way. I think it’s useful.

That is what they will remember for way longer [00:16:00] than the fact that you actually interrupted in the meeting that thing that actually happened first becomes the side gig. The main gig is now your responsive feedback. So if you want to demonstrate leadership skills and wanna stand out of your behavior, your ability to stay composed, calm, rational, in such, you know, high stress situations, you wanna build a reputation as someone who’s coachable and self-aware, who’s able to discern and who’s able to listen, who’s able to get curious, even if it’s about their own behavior.

So let’s talk about some exact language that you, again, can prepare ahead of time. Just like you visualize how you’re going to respond, be prepared with some key sentences that you know you can easily pull without having to think, dig too deep of what to say when you get the feedback

first. We always wanna thank them. Hey, thanks for sharing that, or thanks for pointing this out. And then you might [00:17:00] wanna dig a little bit deeper and demonstrate this curiosity. Can you help me better understand what that looked like from your perspective?

Maybe can you give me another example? Can you compare it to someone else’s behavior? Right? You are just following up with a question. What that does is it demonstrates that you’re not arguing, but it invites more information. It also shows that you’re not fragile.

It’s that you are, you can quickly hear it. Take your ego out of it and just engage with them whether you agree with the feedback or not. Right? You’re now just asking questions. Second, ask, what impact did that have on you or others?

Assuming that they haven’t explained that really clearly yet. When they’re giving you some feedback like, Hey, I noticed how you interrupted in the meeting. Pay attention to going forward. Ask like thanks for, you know, pointing that out. Can you give me an example of when I did that and then follow up and say [00:18:00] like, it’d be really helpful to understand like the impact that you noticed and I interrupt.

How does it make people feel, or where this really happens, because especially if. You might show up this with this curiosity and effectively on the outside, but internally you start to still have the defense mechanism going.

When we’re not really clear in the feedback of how it impacted other people, we will continue to focus on the intent. Well, I don’t mean Ill by this. I didn’t mean to like disrespect you. That was not at all my intention. My intention was something completely different and we justified with our intent.

The intent doesn’t matter at all if the impact of the behavior is negative. So this questions helps you see the gap between what you thought you were doing and your intention with how it actually landed and the impact it had. So that’s number [00:19:00] two. And then the third, and again, unless that was already clear in the initial feedback, but the third would be.

What would better look like to you? What would I do differently going forward that will give you a signal that I, you know, took that to heart. You still don’t have to agree with it, but you’re just trying to understand, you’re trying to get curious

to see, hmm, can I actually work with this? Is this an angle that I could actually take now on that point of you don’t have to agree with it. Acknowledging the feedback and being curious does not mean you’re agreeing with it. You don’t have to agree with it. You just have to fully acknowledge someone’s perspective without agreeing that their feedback is the absolute truth. You can say, Hey, I hear you. I understand how you experience that. Even if you’re internally thinking, I’m not sure I see the same way.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I [00:20:00] actually think this, whatever you did is this interrupting thing. I actually think it’s a good thing. Even if that’s your, what you truly believe, you can still say, thanks for sharing that. I didn’t realize how you perceive it, and it’s very valuable for me to know the impact this has on other people in the room.

I’m gonna think about this, or I’ll consider this, or I’m gonna process this some more. I’m gonna get back to you.

Don’t try to make logic. Out of this, it’s literally your perspective and perception versus someone else’s perspective and perception. And you might not looking at this at all the same way you might, looking at that elephant from the front and the other person’s looking at the elephant from the side.

You see two different forms and we don’t have to argue what we’re looking at. Okay, now let’s talk about when the stakes are higher, when you are on a performance improvement plan. For example, your boss is telling you that your chop is at risk if [00:21:00] things don’t change, which is typically what happens with a performance improvement plan, also known as a pip. This may be where people, this is often where people spiral, right?

There are, again, exceptions, but in most cases it’s not a death sentence. It’s actually a pretty clear roadmap to make it crystal clear on what the expectations are and what the gap is between your current performance and where you’re supposed to be. And if you can actually treat it this way.

And if you think, oh, I can achieve these expectations, and there’s a reason why. I didn’t before that. Now no longer exists. So let’s say you had something going on in your personal life that no longer is no longer the issue. I, you can now focus on that PIP and your performance. Or there was lack of clarity.

Now there is clarity, there was lack of support. Now there is support, whatever that might be. If there’s actually a change or you know, your personal motivation may also be something that changed and you believe [00:22:00] that you can turn it around, use this as an opportunity. To demonstrate your growth mindset.

Don’t just quit. I mean you, and not to say you can’t go look for a job, it’s probably a safe thing to do to have a backup plan along the way. But don’t step out just because you got a pip that signals, again to your head and to others that you got the feedback and you withdrew.

This is different if you actually don’t wanna do it, or if you don’t believe you can achieve like the goals that are set out on that plan, that would be a different scenario. But assuming that you do believe you can achieve it, you do want to achieve it, stay with it. Your goal in this situation is really clarity and action.

You need to know what success looks like, what specific outcomes they need to see from you. What changes they want to see by what date, Jenny, and [00:23:00] how you will know that you are on track. So if it’s a 30 day pip, for example. Don’t wait until 30 days to then see and find out if you cut it or not.

You wanna make sure that you have a weekly check-in to track. Are we there yet? Are we making progress? Are we on track? What’s the gap? What to focus on next week? If you really just look at as signals coming your way.

You do have a chance to turn into an effective employee. When you are defensive though and you’re arguing, you’re likely not getting the information that you need in order to complete this paper with a successful outcome,

In addition to clarify all of these questions we just talked about is that you wanna. Be really proactive with your communication. So you don’t want your boss to check in on you. You wanna be the one who checks in with them. You wanna tell them what you’ve been working on.

You wanna tell them what you’re making progress on. [00:24:00] You wanna tell them where you’re still figuring things out. You wanna ask for feedback and you wanna do this on a regular basis. For some people, this is. Wednesday and Friday. For some people, this is daily. For some people this might be weekly.

You know, depends a bit on the type of work that you do but. To give that proactively without your boss checking in with you, but you being the one who’s taking the lead demonstrates that you heard the feedback, you’re taking full ownership of this process, and that it’s on you

let them know what you’re doing and to give them that confidence that you’re working on it, that you’re progressing, that you’re taking it seriously. This kind of communication is what builds trust, but

it shows maturity. It shows you’re not hiding from the problem, and that is ultimately a big thing that they want to see.

One of the hardest things about feedback is really realizing that your intention isn’t matching the impact that you have. So you [00:25:00] might be thinking that you’re being supportive. You might be thinking you’re being calm because that’s your intention, but how it’s landing with other people is different,

Okay, now that we’ve talked about sort of these high stakes situations as well let’s talk about what happens after the feedback conversation? So again, you receive the feedback.

You felt the manure falling on you, right? The manure being dumped. You now have in your head which do in such a situation. So you act that out, meaning you’re asking questions, you’re clarifying the feedback. You are looking for suggestions on how to do things better in the future.

You thank them for the feedback, and then you end the conversation or they end the conversation. Now what next? First, reflect privately. Don’t just move on with your day, but take some time to actually process what you heard. Journal about it. Go outside [00:26:00] record while you’re walking a voice memo.

Talk it through it with someone that you trust so that you’re getting it out of your head, and that will help you see it more clearly. You can even use a Chachi PT voice feature or some tool and say, Hey, I just got feedback. Here is what happened, and you’re just going to record it. But it needs to come out. And if you wanna interact with a AI tool, great. One way to do it, or again, if you just like to journal on it or write it down or talk to someone in your life about it, not someone in the workspace ’cause it’s still too raw, but someone in your personal life do that.

Process it and capture it. Now that it’s fresh. If we just go back to our work. By the time we then reflect be this at the end of the day or the next two days later, we might have already lost some of the information that was really fresh in the moment, but also our initial reaction that we wanted to capture.

That is step one. Step [00:27:00] two is to plan specific changes. And I mean like really specific, not, Hey, I’ll be better at communication. That is way too vague. That’s like someone telling you, Hey, you gotta improve your communication. You’re like, what does that mean?

Like what? What? Can you be more specific? So similarly, if you tell yourself, I’ve gotta be better with communication, it’s like, what? Can you be more specific? So instead, write down. Meeting, I’m going to pause before responding.

That’s very specific. Something that you. So look at the feedback and what you want to act on. And if you got a box of feedback all at once, choose like the top three things. Focus there first. And once you see some progress there, then you can go back and pick up more things. But don’t overwhelm yourself.

It’s 10 things you gotta change all at once. [00:28:00] Have clear actions, low hanging fruits, things you easily get implemented to have some early wins and to demonstrate that you were listening. And then 

After having identified an action plan and acted on it. Step three is to follow up with the person who gave you the feedback. And this can feel awkward. I totally get it. But don’t skip this step. You can say, Hey, I’ve been thinking about our last conversation and here’s what I’m gonna focus on changing.

I’d love to check in in a few weeks to see if you notice a difference. Does that sound good to you? That again tells them you’re someone who’s receptive to feedback they start to trust you more. Feel validated that it was the right thing to do to give you this feedback.

So they’re gonna give you more feedback in the future, which. It strengthens the relationship. Now, if you don’t agree with the feedback, it could either be because you’re not clear, right? So you might wanna go back into like, Hey, I’ve been thinking about, have a conversation and what you shared.

I do have a couple follow up questions. So. Not [00:29:00] defensive. Like I disagree with that, so I wanna better understand, but really, can you help me understand this better? Because here’s what I maybe have thought in the past or how I looked at this before, but I realized I missed something, right? So can you help me bridge the gap?

Either you’re being more curious or if you truly disagree with them, you think like, no, this is a stupid idea. I don’t wanna change that way. That is no longer gonna be me, or, I just don’t like it. That’s good for you. But no thank you. Then you can also say, I really thought about this and really appreciate you sharing this with me. And after a of careful consideration, I decided, that i’m gonna continue to do this and this for these and these reasons.

Or you could say. Because I have some concerns with making that change, I’m going to ask a few more people to see how that lands with them or what they would suggest. ’cause here’s what I wanna make sure it doesn’t happen if I were to actually do this change. So again, you can either explain why you’re not gonna do it, or you can say [00:30:00] not yet.

Kind of, I need more information before I’m fully on board with this. That again, then turns this sort of hard conversation into a bonding moment that will actually be a win-win for both of you.

So in essence when you receive feedback, this is not about.

Winning the feedback exchange. This is not about proving the other person wrong or showing them that you didn’t really need to change. This is about getting better, demonstrating leadership and emotional maturity and strengthening the relationship. And this type of growth requires vulnerability.

It’s totally gonna be part of the process. It is maybe omitting that you don’t have it all figured out, and that in itself is not a weakness, that is maturity. We’re gonna link in the show notes to the episode from last week, I talked about nine counterintuitive habits of effective managers.

Demonstrating to others and communicating that they have areas that they’re still trying to develop is actually an [00:31:00] effective habit. So if you like this, I’m pretty sure you’re gonna like last week’s episode two, in case you missed it now, let’s wrap this up. Feedback is the number one tool for improvement and it is a springboard. It’s getting information that will help you improve in that next situation, that next challenge, whatever it might be when you get tough feedback.

Lean in, curious, clarify what you’re learning, and then actually do something with it. If you are really stretching yourself and you’re challenging yourself, you are moving into new territories, new areas, you grow, you take on more responsibility. Feedback is part of the process. It has to be,

imagine an athlete who wants to go to the Olympics and would say like, oh, I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing. I’ll do that, you know, for the next two years and then I’ll go to the Olympics. We would all like, that is a dumb idea. You need to get the best coaches, you need to track what you’re doing.

You need to [00:32:00] adjust things and someone needs to keep telling you what you’re doing well and what you’re not doing well all the time. Right. And we would see that as a really important ingredient for them to qualify and then be successful at the Olympics. So when you think about handling feedback. When you think about getting feedback, that is all part of the process.

But beyond that, it also helps us build stronger relationships when we respond to feedback well, you can become the person people want to work with, that feels safe to discuss, you know, weaknesses or vulnerabilities because you are receptive to it.

Now, if you can’t handle the feedback, then you’re gonna create a plateau for yourself in terms of your growth. You might burn bridges and maybe opportunities stop coming your way.

So what I would encourage you to do right now as you’re listening to this, is to think about a piece of tough feedback that you’ve been avoiding or dismissing. Maybe someone said month ago that you’ve been brushing off. Maybe it’s something you know is [00:33:00] true, but you didn’t or haven’t want to face it.

What would it look like to actually get curious about it? What would it look like to actually do something with it? And it doesn’t matter. Is this from someone at work or someone in your personal life? Like, what’s something you brush off or you defended, or you didn’t wanna do something with it? What would that look like if you haven’t gotten feedback in a long time, solicit some feedback, ask for suggestions or for advice, and if no one has anything to say.

Get curious. Is it because you’re actually doing a great job, there’s nothing there, or people don’t know what your next thing would be? That would mean that you need to expand and grow, or have people stopped trying to give you feedback be really honest with yourself. When are you exposing yourself to situations or how are you exposing yourself to situations to receive the feedback? With that said, I hope you found this valuable.

If you did, please share it with someone who may be navigating tough feedback right now or who’s in a situation like this, or discuss [00:34:00] and share this podcast with your team,

or with your coworkers. Thanks so much for tuning in. I’ll see you next week with another episode of the Manager Track podcast.

If you enjoy this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader. People love to work with. This includes a free master class on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it at archova.org/masterclass. 

The second resource is my best-selling book, the confident and competent new manager, how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out at archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. 

You can find all those links, in the show notes down below.