LOUISE: It's my pleasure
to welcome today
Doug Stone and Sheila Heen,
the authors of the new book,
"Thanks for the
Feedback: The Science
and the Art of Receiving
Feedback Well."
Sheila and Doug are
lecturers of law at Harvard
and founders of the
Triad Consulting Group.
They authored the classic
best-seller "Difficult
Conversations" and have now
released their latest book,
"Thanks for the
Feedback," the first book
to assert that
receiving feedback
well is a skill that can
be taught and refined.
We all get feedback-- informal,
formal, explicit, implicit--
in our personal and
professional lives every day.
Feedback is fundamental.
We can't grow without it.
Giving and receiving
feedback is also
central to Google's culture.
It's how we're able to make
the products that change
people's lives and how we're
able to help one another grow.
Many of us are currently in the
process of asking and receiving
for feedback through our
performance review cycle.
So this is a timely topic
we can all learn more about.
Please join me in
welcoming Sheila and Doug.
[APPLAUSE]
SHEILA HEEN: Thank you.
And thank you so
much for coming.
I'm Sheila and this
is Doug, just in case
you need to keep
us straight, OK?
So as Louise
mentioned, 15 years ago
we published "Difficult
Conversations."
What were you guys
doing 15 years ago?
Google barely existed, right?
So you guys have been busy.
Which raises the
question, what the heck
have we been doing
for the last 15 years?
"Difficult Conversations" came
out and pretty quickly started
doing well.
And over the last
15 years, we have
been amazed to find what
people are doing with it.
I was talking to somebody
at NASA last week
and learned that it
has been downloaded
onto the International
Space Station.
Which is fascinating, but I
guess if you're out on a space
walk, you really want
to be getting along
with the guy who lets
you back in, right?
I also met a woman
recently who uses
it to teach Argentinian
tango, which has very subtle
signaling apparently
between the two partners.
It's not the melodramatic thing
that we see in the movies.
And she told me
that actually when
couples come to her to
learn this together,
by the end of the first
lesson, they are fighting.
Like, you're not
signaling clearly enough,
you're not communicating.
Well, you're never
listening to me.
I'm trying to tell you
what we're going to do.
So she sends them home with
"Difficult Conversations."
So in addition to all of the
usual graduate school business
management applications, it's
being used in marriage therapy.
Now here's what happens when
you have a book that does well.
They want you to do another one.
They want you to do another one.
I'm being coached
to walk this way.
I'm trying to
receive the feedback.
And they want you
to do another one.
And they want it to be as close
as possible to the original.
Because then all the people
who like the original
will buy the follow-up.
So they're suggesting,
well, you could
do "Difficult
Conversations at Work"
and "Difficult
Conversations at Home"
and "Difficult
Conversations for Chefs"
and "Difficult
Conversations on the Patio."
And that made sense
in the business world,
publishing world that we're in.
But we really felt like
we covered that here.
We really wrote this to span
personal and professional life.
And, I guess, for chefs, too.
So we really need to
learn something new
before we can
write another book.
And that became the
question of the hour.
What are we learning that's new?
Then it became the
question of the year
and then the question
of the decade.
And during this time,
what we were actually
doing is going around
working with corporations
across all different kinds
of industries as well
as non-profits working
in ethnic conflict,
working with
families, et cetera.
And the first thing that we
do when we work with a group
is that we ask them, so what
are your hardest conversations?
Because we want to be
working on the real
stuff that they're
grappling with
to make it realistic
and relevant.
And we started noticing
a pattern, which
was that feedback
was coming up a lot.
To put a finer point
on it, feedback
showed up on that
list 100% of the time,
across six continents and
all different industries.
It didn't matter who
we were talking to.
It didn't matter why
they brought us in
or what we were talking about.
The first thing that
would always come up
is giving honest feedback.
Because the receiver,
they get defensive
or they get demotivated or
you hurt your relationship.
So, like, who needs it?
But quickly on
the heels of that,
people would name, well, but
receiving feedback that's
unfair or it's off base and
definitely poorly delivered.
Like, really?
In front of everybody
else at the meeting?
Or by text?
Seriously?
And so the usual fix for
that in organizations
is to teach givers how to give.
So you get all the
managers together.
And you train them to
give it more skillfully
and more often and more
persistently if it's resisted.
And that makes a lot of sense.
We teach that stuff, too.
But eventually it occurred to
us that actually, in many cases,
it doesn't matter how much power
or authority or skill the giver
has, the receiver is
actually the one who's
in charge of what they let in,
what sense they make of it,
and whether and how
they choose to change.
And so we started
to look at, well,
gosh what's out
there for receivers?
Because one of the fundamental
human challenges in life
is figuring out how to
learn about yourself.
And so what we're going
to talk a little bit
about this afternoon
is what we've
learned about the challenges.
Now I don't know
about you, but I
have a very ambivalent
relationship
to receiving feedback.
Like there are times where
I'm working with someone.
It's so incredibly helpful.
I can feel myself improve.
I'm getting better at something.
You've got a mentor that
you really trust or a coach.
It's exhilarating.
And then there are
other times where
I get the offhand criticism
from my mother-in-law
or from up here, who's
clearly the problem is them
in terms of them being
difficult to work with.
And feedback can also
be incredibly painful.
And there's this
funny phenomenon--
and I'm curious what your
experience has been--
that sometimes the things
we learn the most from,
either about ourselves or that
change us the most in life,
are experiences that
are most painful.
How many people would say for
them that rings true sometimes?
So one of the reasons,
then-- and this
is the starting place
for us-- feedback is hard
because we are
conflicted about it.
And we have really varied
experiences with it.
Feedback actually sits at
the crux of two human needs.
Number one, is the human
need to learn and grow
to achieve mastery to
get better at something.
That is hardwired
into us, right?
It's why we're addicted
to those games, right?
To getting a better score.
It's also why we take up hobbies
in retirement where you're
supposed to be
done with learning.
It's why people who
otherwise seem normal
stick with golf, because
the good round makes
you think actually you're
getting better at it.
But sitting right
alongside that is the need
to be accepted,
respected, loved,
to feel safe just
the way you are now.
And the very fact
of feedback often
suggests that how you
are now isn't quite A-OK.
And so I don't think this
tension is going to go away,
but it helps us understand
why even though we're always
told we sometimes experience
feedback as a gift, sometimes
it feels more like a colonoscopy
because of this safety
question.
So what we want to
do is just invite
you to think about the feedback
that you have received.
I'm going to turn
things over to Doug.
DOUGLAS STONE: So we're going
to put you to work a little bit.
I'd like you to think
of a time in your life
when you received feedback
that you did not take.
And I want you to think
of what that feedback was.
And then I want
you to see if you
can identify the reason
that you didn't take it.
And we'll give you
about three minutes.
And if you could pair up
with someone near you,
just quickly share some
feedback you didn't take
and then what was the reason
that you didn't take it.
Question?
AUDIENCE: By taking,
do what they suggested?
DOUGLAS STONE: Do what they
suggested, take it to heart--
SHEILA HEEN: Or agree with it.
DOUGLAS STONE: [INAUDIBLE]
want to do that change.
SHEILA HEEN: So it might
have been an evaluation
that you didn't agree with.
So you're like, I'm
not accepting that.
So it could either be
advice or evaluation.
DOUGLAS STONE: So we'll
come back in three minutes,
and we'll get a sense
of where you're at.
So let's just get a quick sense.
What are some reasons why
you didn't take the feedback?
Yes?
AUDIENCE: Didn't
trust the feedbacker.
DOUGLAS STONE: You didn't
trust the feedbacker.
AUDIENCE: Or their motivations.
DOUGLAS STONE: Their
motivations, right?
Like what's up with that?
Why are they giving this to me?
A little suspicious.
Yep?
AUDIENCE: Because
the feedback was
given in a very poor manner,
if either aggressively or--
DOUGLAS STONE:
Aggressively, poor manner.
AUDIENCE: Aggressively
and personally.
DOUGLAS STONE: Yeah.
So it was sort of an
attack on you a little bit.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, rather
than-- so the feedback
could have been
perfectly adequate
if it would have been done--
given in the right tone.
DOUGLAS STONE: Yup.
SHEILA HEEN: Be sure to repeat
because people remotely can't
hear otherwise.
DOUGLAS STONE: OK.
Others?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I just don't think
the feedback makes sense.
DOUGLAS STONE: The feedback
doesn't make sense.
It's wrong, stupid, right?
Something like that?
Others?
Others?
In the back?
You guys also have
rejected feedback.
Yep?
AUDIENCE: I had a
competing commitment
that I was trying to
integrate the feedback
with this competing commitment.
DOUGLAS STONE:
Yeah, so you say you
have a competing commitment.
It may not be sort of what
you're working on right now.
Or it contradicts something
else that's important to you.
Good.
So there's lots of reasons that
we don't take feedback, right?
And often people like me
will stand up in front
and say, look, you're
supposed to take feedback.
It's good for you.
You know that.
So just get over it
and take the feedback.
But in fact, we see that
there are real reasons.
There are real
challenges, tensions
that we experience
when we get feedback.
And we've good reasons
for not actually
taking the feedback sometimes.
So that the first step in being
good at taking feedback-- and I
should say, being good at
receiving feedback well
doesn't mean that you
take the feedback.
It means that you
engage well with it,
that you understand
it, and then sort out.
So step one in
receiving feedback well
is knowing your own
tendencies when you get it.
How do you respond?
What are those internal voice
thoughts, the ways that you get
triggered, that may get in
the way of you engaging well?
And you might think, as you
reflect on yourself and others,
you might think,
well, there's got
to be a billion reasons,
a googolplex, if you will,
of reasons why a person
might reject feedback.
But in fact, Sheila and I've
been teaching this material
all around the world.
And the reasons
sort pretty nicely
into three different categories.
So if you can get a grip
on these three categories,
then you've got some real
insight into typical ways
that we hear feedback.
So the first category is
what we call truth triggers.
Or it's the problem to see
the feedback, understand it.
This is your comment about,
it doesn't make sense.
So how many people
would take feedback
if you knew it was
wrong and stupid?
Probably not so much.
So it makes sense
to sort feedback
for is it good, bad, right,
wrong, helpful, stupid.
Someone says, you've got to
speak out more at the meetings.
In that last meeting you
were at, you were very quiet.
And you're thinking, OK, but
I wasn't at that meeting.
And my name is not Mike.
And so this feedback
is just all wrong.
So we are very smart to sort
for whether the feedback make
sense, whether it
seems right and useful.
The challenge is that very
often we sort before we even
know what the feedback means.
So we've decided what
the feedback means.
And we think, OK, now I'm going
to put it in the reject pile.
But we actually don't
know yet what it means.
And we'll say a little
more about that.
Or we're listening
to the feedback
through what we
call wrong spotting.
We're patrolling for whether
it's totally right or not.
And if we can find
anything wrong with it--
that we don't like
the tone of voice,
maybe the feedback,
the content, was
OK-- if we can find
anything wrong with it,
we might set the
whole feedback aside.
And there may be 90%
of the feedback that
really doesn't
make sense for us.
But there could
be that golden 10%
that would actually
be quite helpful.
So we'll come back to this
truth trigger in a moment.
A second category has to
do with the relationship.
This was your
comment about, well,
I don't trust their motivations.
Maybe I'm not sure why are
they giving me this feedback.
Or maybe I don't
trust their expertise.
There's something
about them that
makes me a little suspicious.
Or it could be-- do
you have-- I just need
a little glass of water.
Or it could be that you
feel uncomfortable by how
you're treated by them.
You might feel under
appreciated by them.
Let's say you do
someone a favor.
You cover for them at work
while they're on sick leave.
Then they come back, and
the first thing they do
is they say, well while
you were covering for me,
you didn't even finish that
project I was working on.
That wasn't good.
Now I'm in a hole.
And you're thinking, OK,
let's talk about the project,
but you're not going to
thank me for covering first?
The first words out of
your mouth are criticism?
If you feel under
appreciated, it's
like an automatic
feedback defeat button.
Like you can't take
feedback from someone
as you're feeling also
under appreciated by them.
So there are relationship
triggers, often defeat feedback
as well, whether or not
the feedback make sense.
And then the third category is
what we call identity triggers.
We all go through
life with a sense
of who we are, a
sense of how we are.
And there are ways that
we are that matter to us.
So you might think of
yourself as a fair person
or a smart person
or hardworking,
kind-- whatever it is to you.
And feedback represents a
threat to how you see yourself.
Or it has the potential to
threaten how you see yourself.
And here, we end up rejecting
the feedback not even
necessarily because we think the
feedback is wrong or unhelpful.
We simply reject
it because we're
feeling overwhelmed by what
that threat might represent.
If this feedback is right
about me and I take it in,
I become flooded.
I feel anxious,
depressed, overwhelmed.
So we set it aside.
And people are very differently
sensitive around that kind
of thing.
In fact, there's a statistic
where one study showed
that people vary up to 3,000%
in their ability to recover,
or the time it takes
for them to recover,
from very challenging feedback.
And so some of us are on
the more sensitive side
of the continuum.
And some of us are on
the insensitive side
of the continuum.
Maybe insensitive isn't
the right word for that.
Maybe even-keeled is better?
Although if you're on
the insensitive side,
you're kind of insensitive.
So you probably don't
care what I call you.
How many of you
would say that you're
toward the more sensitive
side of the spectrum?
And how many would say you're
on the more even-keeled side?
One person at Google
is even-keeled.
So a few in both categories.
So one of the interesting
things is knowing yourself
on that continuum,
but also you're
giving each other feedback.
When a person on one
side gives feedback
to someone on the
other side, it's
interesting because we
all assume, more or less,
that people are like s.
And if you tend
to be even-keeled
and you're giving
feedback to someone
who is more easily
triggered, you
might give it very
directly because you're
thinking that's how
I like the feedback.
And it might upset them
far more than you're
aware, and vice versa.
Someone who's more sensitive
might give the feedback
in a kind of roundabout
way, and the person
on the other side of the
continuum is thinking like,
just say it.
Just tell me.
Just get to the point.
So it can create these
interesting mismatches.
So this first step,
though, as we say,
is getting to know
your own tendencies
in the face of feedback.
Which of these are
being triggered
when you get
feedback is step one.
And then so now what do we do?
How do we handle each
of these triggers
as we move through the feedback?
So we're going to say a
few things about each.
So I'm going to put
up this statement.
And I'm going to ask you,
let's just brainstorm.
So we're in the "see."
We're talking about
now the substance
of the feedback,
this first trigger.
If someone says to you,
or you say to someone,
"I don't like the
way those pants look
on you," what might that mean?
What's a range of
meanings that someone
might have if they say this?
AUDIENCE: You're fat?
DOUGLAS STONE: You're fat.
Yes, correct.
So, in fact, the person's
saying the word "pants"
but they really mean the word
"you" and the word "fat."
What else might it mean?
AUDIENCE: Those
pants are hideous.
DOUGLAS STONE: Those
pants are hideous.
So maybe it really
is about the pants.
It might have nothing
to do with you.
It's just those pants.
What else?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
DOUGLAS STONE: Sorry.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
DOUGLAS STONE: Say it again?
AUDIENCE: Our tastes
are different.
DOUGLAS STONE: Our
tastes are different.
So it's just my taste
versus your taste, right?
And you were--
AUDIENCE: I was going to say
that the speaker didn't sew
them properly or didn't
pick them out or something.
And maybe actually the comment
is referring back to maybe
what the speaker
had done before.
So [INAUDIBLE].
DOUGLAS STONE: So the speaker
had some contribution.
I didn't pick them
out properly for you.
So it's a comment about me.
Other?
AUDIENCE: When you wear
them, it reminds me of my ex.
And you're nothing like my ex.
[LAUGHTER]
DOUGLAS STONE: When you wear
them, it reminds me of my ex.
And you're nothing like my ex.
Because my ex is so
great or so horrible?
AUDIENCE: Horrible.
DOUGLAS STONE: Oh.
So this is like the biggest
compliment you could ever give.
So you are so much better
that you just erase all this.
"I love you so much"
is what you're saying.
And I hated my ex.
OK, so a very
positive statement.
How long do your relationships
tend to last, by the way?
[LAUGHTER]
So here's the thing.
So we have a range from
it's about these pants--
maybe their wrinkled
or maybe their--
to the match of the
pants on the person.
Could be about just the person.
You're out of shape or
you've gained weight.
Could be about the
person's judgment.
It's a comment on your ability
to function as an adult
and dress yourself.
It could be about a
whole range of things.
And when we give or
receive feedback,
very often we're using
words that are-- actually
all those are
single-syllable words.
They're easy words
to understand.
And we all think, well,
this has a common meaning.
But in fact, it's not clear.
And feedback very
often is very labely.
Let's take a look at just some
of the things that we've heard.
I don't like the way these
particular pants look on you.
Oh, actually, in different
light, they look fine.
So that's the most specific.
Maybe these kinds of
pants, getting broader.
So now it's more about you.
You're not as fit anymore.
You've never had
any taste, and I'm
trying to save
you from yourself.
This next one, I'm humiliated
to be seen around you,
and you don't seem to care.
So it's about both of us,
but you being inconsiderate.
And then the really sad one, it
could be easing into a divorce.
So it could have a
range of meanings.
And this is genuinely
representative of the way
we tend to give feedback
or the way we get it.
It tends to come in
what Sheila and I call
labels, these very
general terms.
And people are well
intentioned, but there may not
be a common understanding.
So for example, someone-- Yes?
AUDIENCE: Are these the range
in which we take feedback,
or that people give
feedback, or both?
DOUGLAS STONE: So the
question is, is this
the range that we take
feedback when we're receiving
or that we give feedback
when we're giving?
Yeah, the answer
is both, that we
don't know what
the person means.
The giver knows what
the giver means.
And then the receiver
might come up
with a meaning that might
or might not match that.
So the receiver
might walk around
all day and all
week and all year
thinking we've got this terrible
problem in our relationship.
And the giver is thinking,
those aren't the best pants
for the party we're
about to go to.
And so there's just
a vast mismatch.
So in the workplace,
we get feedback
that is very labely as well.
So someone says
be more assertive
or speak up in the meeting.
Well, what do these things mean?
Sheila and I did a radio
interview the other day
where the guy was commenting on
a label that he'd been given.
And his producer
said, you really
got to be more
edgy on the radio.
You got to have
an edgier persona.
And the host of the show
is walking around for weeks
thinking like how
can I be more edgy?
I got to pepper my
comments with swear words.
And maybe I should
talk about sex.
Or maybe I should
attack people and get
some real stuff going here.
And he finally decided
that just not my persona.
It's not who I am.
So he's going to talk this
producer, and he's saying,
it's really not who I am.
And then he realized,
but I actually
don't understand exactly what
you mean when you say "edgy."
So he said, what did
you mean, by the way?
And the producer said,
well, by "edgier,"
you got to be more sort of
emotionally open and vulnerable
on your show.
[LAUGHTER]
People like vulnerability.
And so there was this
huge misunderstanding.
And it's not that
there's a right or wrong.
It's that one person has
an idea in their head.
They're trying to help the
other person understand that.
And it's not clear.
So the advice-- the
question is, so how do you
dig under these labels
and understand them?
And we recommend two very
powerful, useful questions.
Your feedback has a past, and
your feedback has a future.
So we have the
label in the middle.
Look back and say
to the person who's
giving you the
feedback, when you
say I should be more
assertive, looking back,
what are you
referring to in terms
of my behavior or attitude?
Describe to me what sort
of provoked the feedback.
What do you see?
And then looking forward, how
would I do it differently?
What would be an example of how
I would do this differently?
What is being assertive
look like to you
as you're giving
me this feedback?
So this truth trigger, the
goal of seeing the feedback,
is really a matter of
spotting these labels, digging
under them.
Once you understand
the feedback,
it doesn't mean you
therefore always take it.
But now that you
understand it, you're
in a really good
position to figure out
what does it mean
and should I take it,
or are there aspects of it
that I should take, or not.
Let me turn it over Sheila.
SHEILA HEEN: So, so far
Doug has been talking
about truth triggers or
the challenge to see,
the challenge to see
what in the world
is the giver talking
about, and what exactly
are they suggesting,
and to understand
that before you decide do
I think this is good advice
or not.
And as Doug said, 90%
of it might be off,
but 10% might give you
something to think about.
The other part of
the challenge to see
is the challenge
to see yourself.
So we have a chapter
about blind spots.
I don't actually
have blind spots,
but I know that all
of you do, right?
And there's all this information
other people have about you
that you don't have
about yourself.
And so that's another piece
of the challenge to see.
I'm going to step over
into the challenge of "we,"
the who the giver is in our
relationship, which actually
taints the what of what
they're trying to tell me.
By the way, when
you're writing a book,
you're trying to
figure out, well,
in what order do
we tell this story?
"See, we, me" is the order
that we finally settled on.
We considered "we,
see, me," which
had nice resonance for
feedback receiving.
The only one we knew was
not going to work was "see,
me, we," which really was
not going to be appealing.
So I'm going to step into
"we," the challenge of we,
or the relationship.
And I want to focus
specifically on situations
where the feedback is actually
coming from the relationship.
And the other person feels like
something isn't working here.
You're kind of driving me crazy.
And it's probably mutual.
And so to fix this, you're
the one who needs to change.
Right?
So it's not I'm
going to help you
with your skills in
a foreign language.
I'm going to get
better at tennis.
It's actually, I'm going
to help you not annoy me
as much as you do, or
to change something
because it's
frustrating to me and I
think we could work
better together.
The easiest way to
understand this, I think,
is just through an example.
So a few years ago, I
got a call from a CEO.
And he said, I've got these
eight senior vice presidents.
They each run a function.
As a team, they can't
stand each other.
They drive each other crazy.
They can't make good decisions.
They all come to me to
complain about each other.
So I need you to fix them.
OK, so there's a whole other
set of conversations with him
that we need to
have, but let's talk
about the team for a moment.
The first thing I do is I
do individual interviews
with each member of
the team to understand
from your perspective
what's going on.
And what I find
here is something
that is common in teams that
are struggling to work together,
which is that you actually have
a couple of primary conflicts
between individuals that
everybody else is trying
to work around or manage, right?
Or line up around.
And on this particular team,
one of the key conflicts
is between a guy I'm going
to call Sam and a guy I'll
call Pete to protect the guilty.
Do we want this over here?
MICHAEL: Yeah.
SHEILA HEEN: Where do
you want it, Michael?
That good?
All right.
A guy I'll call Sam and
a guy I'll call Pete.
Now Sam, by the way, is one
of these no-filter people.
Like whatever comes
into his head, he says.
You know people like that?
Yeah, OK.
So when I first talked to
Sam the first time, actually,
he answered the phone
not by saying hello, he
answered the phone by saying,
you're seven minutes late.
I said, nice to meet you.
Let's use our last 23
minutes well, shall we?
And he said, well, look,
it's a waste of time, anyway.
The CEO is making us come to
this two-day thing with you,
but the real problem here
is that these other guys--
and especially Pete--
can't handle conflict.
If I got a problem with
you, I'll just tell you.
We'll debate it out.
We'll figure it out.
We'll go out for
a beer afterwards.
But Sheila, you're not going
to change their personalities.
And that's why this
is a waste of time.
And he hung up.
Eventually, I get
a hold of Pete.
Now Pete tells me right off
the bat, I hate conflict.
In fact, the CEO
is making us come
to this two-day thing with you.
Frankly, I'm just
hoping to have my heart
attack in the first hour.
Like, it is going to kill
me one way or another.
The question is just
how much suffering
will be involved, right?
I'd hate to have it
in the last hour.
So Sam is the head
of operations.
Just to make this
more fun, operations
used to be Pete's job.
Pete moved over and
took over international.
Why?
Well, partly because
it's the growth
engine for the
organization, but also,
he admits to me, so that he
can be out of the country
most of the time and
not deal with Sam.
Now you tell me.
There's a problem between
operations and international,
oh, every few days.
Who starts the conversation?
AUDIENCE: Sam.
SHEILA HEEN: Sam, you betcha.
So Sam calls Pete.
What does Pete do?
AUDIENCE: Not pick up.
SHEILA HEEN: Yeah, he
does not answer the phone.
From Pete's point
of view, caller ID
is the best invention ever, OK?
So he let's it go to voice mail.
What does Sam do next?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Leaves a
nasty voice mail.
SHEILA HEEN: He leaves a voice
mail, and then he emails him.
Now Pete sees Sam's name
show up in is inbox, which
causes him instant
anxiety, right?
He's already triggered.
And so he's in the
middle of something else.
He doesn't have time to
deal with this right now.
So he lets it sit.
What's the next thing Sam does?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
SHEILA HEEN: Emails him
again, texts him, right?
Pete ignores it for now.
Eventually, Sam calls
Pete's right-hand guy, who
texts Pete and says,
Sam's looking for you.
Pete texts back, I know, right?
And then eventually Sam goes
above Pete to Pete's boss,
to the CEO.
Now, by the way, about four
minutes has elapsed here.
How many of you are
more sympathetic to Sam?
In other words, Pete
being this unresponsive
is just unprofessional.
More sympathetic to Pete?
You have a Sam in your life.
They drive you totally nuts.
Yeah?
OK.
Are they both contributing
to this problem?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
SHEILA HEEN: Yeah.
So by the way, on your team,
as you watch things like this,
you often will be more
sympathetic to one side
or the other just based
on your own profile.
But this is what we call a
self-reinforcing relationship
system.
And each of them has feedback
for the other about what's
wrong with you that makes you
impossible to work with, right?
And coaching.
We call it a self-reinforcing
cycle, relationship cycle,
or system because their
emotional coping strategies
are actually making it worse.
They're eliciting exactly
the behavior they don't like.
In other words, the more Sam
pursues, the more Pete avoids.
And the more Pete avoids,
the more aggressively Sam
pursues, which means
the more Pete flees.
Pete actually admitted to me
that he was in Afghanistan once
on a satellite phone and
it didn't have caller ID.
So he answered.
Sam launches into, this
is what we have to do
and you need to make a decision
and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he was so
overwhelmed, he was like,
[STATIC NOISE] oh,
we're breaking up.
Sorry.
And hung up on him.
[LAUGHTER]
Now can this change?
We're not going to change
their personalities,
but I don't think, when we talk
about feedback and coaching,
you have to change
people's personalities.
There are very
specific behaviors
that are actually
making it worse.
Now the place where we finally
got some traction on this
was a moment where it was like
the afternoon of the first day
of this dreaded
two days together,
and we had kicked the CEO out.
It was just the eight
senior vice presidents.
And Sam turns to Pete
and says, Pete, I just
don't understand why, when I
tell you you're full of shit,
you think I'm attacking you.
[LAUGHTER]
Excuse my language.
Now of course, this is
exactly what Pete hates,
so Pete's like speechless.
And it took another
member of the team
to say like, OK, Sam, I
know that that would not
feel like an attack to you.
To you, that's a
healthy invitation
to a good conversation.
That doesn't really feel that
way to Pete and, by the way,
a couple of others of us.
And they started
to map this cycle
so that they could see the
ways in which actually they're
coping strategies were
inadvertently making it worse.
And then what we
did, feedback-wise,
is we just reversed
these arrows.
So we asked Pete, look,
give Sam some advice.
If he needs a response from
you, what should he do?
Tell him one thing to do.
And Pete said, oh, that's easy.
First of all, don't call me.
When you call me,
you already know
what the issue is and you've
got your arguments ready.
And so I have to pick
up the phone cold
and get barraged with
this assault of arguments
about a problem I didn't even
know existed in many cases.
Instead, send me an email.
In the email, tell me
what's the problem.
If you have a
preferred solution,
just tell me what it is.
And especially tell me by when
do we have to figure this out,
because everything
is a crisis with you.
And I've got a ton of
things on my plate.
I've got to prioritize.
So tell me, we've got this
out by tomorrow morning,
or by Friday, whatever it is.
Then I can prioritize
and take you seriously.
Sam said, OK, I can do that.
So then we asked Sam,
all right, what advice,
what feedback or coaching
do you have for Pete
if he wants you to
just back off, right?
And So Sam said,
well, that's easy.
Just tell me you got the email.
Tell me, got it.
Because some of my
anxiety is that I
can't tell if I'm
getting through to you.
I'm an operations guy.
I have a problem to solve.
If you tell me I got
it and you tell me
when you're going to get
back to me, I can relax.
I'll put it on my calendar.
I know we're going to talk
tomorrow morning at 8:00.
Then I can move on.
All right.
Did this help?
AUDIENCE: Yes?
SHEILA HEEN: Yeah.
For a while, right?
Because, by the way, when
you talk about-- like
they were totally persuaded by
this coaching from the other.
Putting into action, such
a critical next step,
and being consistent about that
action, is a real challenge.
And they needed other
members of their team.
They needed other members
of their team to nudge them.
They also needed to give
each other some leeway.
So if they forgot to--
rather than say, yeah, see?
This just proves
your impossible.
To nudge, to say, hey, I can't
tell whether you got my email.
Be sure to get back to me.
Or I saw you left
me a voice mail.
Can you just be sure to send
me an email to follow up,
and I'll let you know
when I can get to it.
When you look at relationships
where you have friction,
one of the chapters in
the book talks about how
do you step back to
understand what's going on,
why you're driving each other
crazy, and what coaching
might help.
And we really recommend
taking three steps back.
So the first step just
looks at what we call you
plus me intersections, the
ways in which you and I are
different which are creating
the friction between us.
This, by the way, is why some
of your most valuable feedback
or coaching can come from
people that you actually
have difficulty working with.
If you only ask the people
you work with easily,
they sometimes don't
see your edges, right?
Because it's just an
easy complementariness.
You have kind of the same
work style or email management
style, when we'll get back
to each other, et cetera.
The people you find
difficult to work with?
They see your edges,
partly because they're
so good at provoking
them, right?
So they're actually, in some
ways, the most valuable player
to coach you on one
thing that would actually
help to make the relationship
easier with less transaction
cost.
And it comes from that whatever
the difference is between you.
The second step back
then looks at roles
because sometimes the role
we're in in the organization
is part of the friction, like I
have to pester you about this.
But in your role, this
is not top priority
which is why it always slips
down the priority list.
So some of it is just
the roles that we're
in that is creating
some of the friction.
And then, of course, the bigger
picture, stepping back, saying,
well, are there other
players or processes
or physical environment that
are contributing to the problem
that we can or can't change?
I mean, one of the dilemmas
between Sam and Pete
is that Pete on the other side
of the world a lot of the time.
So Sam is like, why aren't
you getting back to me?
Well, because I'm sleeping, OK?
So factoring in and
stepping back to say,
OK, let me just remember that we
are constrained by some things,
so that we can sort of
monitor our expectations
or make changes if there are
changes that can be made.
So this is part of
the challenge of "we."
And I think getting
feedback about the product
that you're working on is
easier than getting feedback
about the person that you
are or your management
style or your work style.
And that's always going
to provoke more reaction
especially if the
relationship with the giver
is a little bit
troubled or frustrated.
Let me just now spend
a couple minutes
in the challenge of being "me."
So one of the things that's
been really interesting as we've
been working on this
project looking at both
the social science and
the neuroscience out there
is, as Doug mentioned,
that each of us
is wired very differently
in terms of sensitivity
to feedback.
And we took a look at
three key variables
that drive your reactivity
or sensitivity to feedback.
The first is what's
called baseline.
And in the literature, this is
sometimes called "set point."
The idea here is that you,
if it's a scale of one to 10,
each of us generally
gravitate back
to a particular
level of happiness
or satisfaction in life.
So some people live
their life at nine.
They're like incredibly
cheerful and happy
about everything,
like irrationally
happy about that
great cup of coffee
that they had this morning.
Other people live
their life at two.
They're just always a little
chronically dissatisfied.
Now why does this matter?
By the way, this
comes from studies
of people who win the lottery.
And a year later,
they're about as
happy or unhappy as
they were before.
Also people who go to jail.
A year later, they're about
as happy or unhappy as they
were before.
OK, so this is sort
of where you gravitate
back for in the absence
of other events.
One of the reasons
baseline is important is
that if you do have a relatively
low baseline, like you're
a two or a three, positive
feedback can sometimes
be muffled for you.
You won't hear positive
feedback as clearly.
If you have a high baseline,
you will hear negative feedback.
And that's partly because
positive information in life
and negative or threatening
information in life,
our system just is
wired differently.
We have a threat alert system.
So negative feedback
is more likely to have
a mainline to your soul.
And positive
feedback doesn't have
that as direct a connection
emotionally, interestingly.
The second factor is
what we call swing.
So in the wake of positive
or negative feedback,
how far do you swing
negative or positive?
Your team gets the
same piece of feedback.
I'm devastated.
You're like, eh, no big deal.
We'll fix it.
Right?
Which prompts you, by the way,
to give me additional feedback
that I'm overreacting, right?
I mean, I need to get a thicker
skin or not take it personally.
So I'm swinging wide.
And then the third factor
is, how long does it
take to either recover
from negative feedback?
Or how long do you
sustain positive feedback?
So let's imagine you get
an email from someone
with positive feedback like,
wow, that was fantastic.
How many people would say you
have a pretty long sustain?
Like emotionally, that
would stick with you
for at least the rest of the
day if not the rest of the week?
How many people, it
would stick with you
like until you open
the next email?
OK.
So this is really different.
And, by the way, sustain
and recovery, as well as
your degree is swing,
positive and negative,
operate independently.
So you can have long
sustain, but quick recovery,
for instance.
Or you can have short sustain
and very long recovery.
If you have short sustain
and pretty long recovery,
feedback is really threatening
because the positive stuff just
doesn't stick no matter how
genuine or important it is
and the negative stuff
really takes you a long time
to recover from.
And vice versa, if
you have the opposite
actually feedback's pretty
great because the positive stuff
sticks and you don't
necessarily remember
a whole lot of the
negative stuff.
By the way, Doug
mentioned, obviously
being very sensitive to
feedback is challenging,
but being insensitive
or even-keel
in the face of feedback
has its own challenges
because sometimes it just
won't stick with you.
And so then you go back and
you have another meeting,
and the person you're
working with says, remember?
We talked about
this six months ago?
And you're like, oh, yeah,
we kind of did, didn't we?
Because the degree of emotion
you have in the experience
affects how you remember it and
how easily you can retrieve it.
It puts like a big red tag on it
so you can retrieve it easily.
And in retrieving it, if there's
emotion associated with it,
you can re-trigger that emotion.
So you feel terrible or
anxious or whatever again
when you remember it.
So if you don't
have a lot of swing,
it may not stick with you.
OK, one more thing about why it
matters how sensitive you are.
If you are in the depths
of a big negative swing,
really upset by
feedback, it changes
your sense of the
feedback itself.
So it changes both your
sense of the feedback--
it gets super-sized-- and
your sense of who you are.
And one of the
things that happens
is what we have dubbed
the Google bias.
Because it is as you get one
little piece of feedback.
It's discrete.
DOUGLAS STONE: Do people
know what Google is?
The search engine?
SHEILA HEEN: And it's as if
mentally and emotionally you
actually Google everything
that is wrong with me.
OK?
And you get 1.2 million hits.
There are sponsored ads from
your father and your ex, OK?
And suddenly you can
do nothing right.
Your sense of yourself as well
how important this is changes.
And we call it a bias because,
of course, as you guys know,
what you get hinges
on your search term.
So you are not searching things
I'm handling pretty well.
If you did, you'd
get 5.2 million hits.
And you would have a more
balanced sense of yourself.
So one of the
chapters of the book
is how you dismantle these
distortions so that you
can actually see the
feedback at actual size
and use it to learn something
and not have it overwhelm you.
Because when you're
overwhelmed, it
affects your sense of the past,
your sense of the present,
and your sense of the future,
and can disable your ability
to learn from it, to
learn anything from it.
I want to turn it over to you.
Do you want to say a
couple words about that?
And then we're going
to take questions.
DOUGLAS STONE: Yeah.
So just a final thought from me.
So Sheila tends to be more
even-keeled on this spectrum.
And I tend to be more sensitive.
And in many ways that made for
a good team writing the book.
We had sort of a representative
of different types working
on the book.
But for me, it was a little bit
of a personal journey as well.
Where before I wrote
the book, I experienced
feedback as very challenging,
obviously especially negative
feedback.
And I would get upset or
disappointed and anxious.
Now, having written the book and
thought about this stuff a lot,
when I get negative feedback,
I get disappointed, upset,
and anxious still.
So what does this mean?
So one thing it means
is there's nothing
that turns bad news into good
news or negative feedback
into positive feedback.
But there's a big
"however" to this.
It would be nice if I
could report that now I'm
just this learning
machine, and I go and seek
feedback and nothing
ever throws me off.
But I still do get
triggered by things.
And I still do get
upset by things.
But the good news is
also really important,
which is that I get
significantly less upset.
And I get back on my feet.
I find my balance
much more quickly.
I feel like I have
specific tools that
enable me to do that.
So the result of
that, the result
of now being somewhat
more resilient
in the face of
feedback, is that I'm
able to seek it out more often.
And both at work-- so at work,
when you seek out feedback,
you do improve and get
better-- and then also
in personal relationships.
When you're somebody who sort
of puts up a wall to feedback,
it limits sort of your own
learning in the relationship.
But it has a particularly
high price tag
for the person you're
in a relationship
with because they're
inevitably going
to have some challenges with you
that they need to talk about.
And if you can't talk about
them, it makes it really tough.
And you end up being isolated
within the relationship.
So as I've gotten
better at feedback,
it also has the
amazingly useful benefit
of making you better, not
just at work, but also
in relationships.
So let's pause here, and
let's take questions.
Ah, yeah, so do we have a mic?
Do we need a mic?
AUDIENCE: Right on.
DOUGLAS STONE: Wow.
SHEILA HEEN: Placed.
DOUGLAS STONE: That was crazy.
AUDIENCE: So thank you
so much for coming.
I really liked your talk
about different dimensions,
like the baseline, swings,
sustain, and recovery.
It's really good to know
that people are different.
And I'm different
from anyone else.
SHEILA HEEN: Yeah.
DOUGLAS STONE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: But I will be very
curious to know whether there's
like a questionnaire
or like a quiz
that I can know what like
quandrantile I fall into.
Because it's good to know
this, but I don't know,
like, what is my own standard
compared to other people.
SHEILA HEEN: Yeah,
so this research
is actually pulling from
several different researchers.
So there isn't one
researcher that
has a questionnaire that
covers all the aspects of this.
Richard Davidson has a
book called "The Emotional
Life of Your Brain"
that's really interesting
and is worth reading.
And he looks at the fact
that positive feeling
and negative feeling is
processed on different sides.
And he has a couple
of questionnaires
that are more about life
than about work and feedback
specifically, how you respond
to events in life that
may be helpful.
But he also says
check your answers
against people who know you, OK?
Because you may
think actually I'm
not still upset about that
guy who cut me off on the road
or what happened at the
meeting this morning.
Other people around
you can tell it's still
affecting the way that you
are interacting with everybody
else, but you're not
necessarily self-aware of that.
It's one of the
reasons why we need
other people to see ourselves.
When you ask other
people for feedback--
and I know that you guys have
been talking about not just
waiting for performance
management official
conversations, but actually
taking up responsibility
to drive and accelerate
your own learning-- one
way to do that is not to
go to people and say, hey,
do you have any feedback for me?
That's a terrible question.
I mean, nobody knows how to
answer that question, I think.
And it's not clear how
honest you want them to be.
Instead, what we suggest
is ask for one thing.
So say, hey, what's one
thing I'm doing or maybe
failing to do that's
getting in my own way
or that's getting in
the way on the team?
Or ask, what's one
thing I could change
that would make the
biggest difference?
You'll get something that's
very specific and more concrete.
And it's clear that you want
them to be honest with you.
And that question can
help you in a bunch
of different
relationships and give you
one thing to work on a time.
AUDIENCE: So I'm
still kind of hung up
on when I receive feedback
about what I tend to think
is a personality
trait of myself.
SHEILA HEEN: Yes.
AUDIENCE: Right?
Like oh, maybe you
should think before you
speak, like that type of stuff.
DOUGLAS STONE: [INAUDIBLE]
personality trait
of not thinking?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, no, no, no.
But like, you know what I mean?
Like, oh, you need to be
a better listener and all
these things that I
think I can work on.
But my personality
just kind of puts me
kind of on one
side of this scale.
How do you take
feedback that you
think is just
personal to yourself?
Like I don't know how much
people can actually change.
DOUGLAS STONE: Well,
so there's a limit.
I mean, to take a really
obviously example, if someone
says you got to work
on how tall you.
You're too tall.
Or you're too short.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, yeah.
I'm sitting down.
That's pretty impressive.
DOUGLAS STONE: Yeah, exactly.
So there are things we
literally can't change.
Then there are things that
are easy, comparatively easy,
to change like when you get to
work, or where you work from,
or whatever.
And then there are
things in the middle that
are kind of a mix of personality
tendencies and behaviors
and actions.
One thing is just to
ask very specifically,
so how would I do that?
Or, what does that
look and sound
like when you say I need
to be more this way?
What does that sound like?
But something you might try is
what we call small experiments.
So sometimes if
someone says, gee, you
need to be more outgoing
at work and friendlier.
And you're thinking, oh, my god.
I have to change my
whole personality.
I'm going to be working at
Google for the next 40 years.
And I've lived my
whole life this way.
And now I have to be a
totally different way.
It can feel overwhelming, right?
But if you just think about it.
OK, tomorrow, what's one
thing I could try tomorrow?
And if I don't like
the way it feels,
then I don't have
to keep doing it.
But if I like it, then
maybe I will keep doing it.
So think of it as very specific,
segmented, just try it.
If you get some
positive feedback,
you can keep doing it.
If you don't and it
doesn't feel comfortable,
you can find another way in.
SHEILA HEEN: Yeah, modify it.
One of the things, toward
the back of the book,
we have five ideas
to get started.
And there's also a whole
chapter on boundaries,
how to turn away feedback.
Because being a good
feedback receiver also
means knowing how and when
you need to protect yourself.
If it's a relentless criticism
that's undermining your sense
of self, how do you put
up some boundaries to say,
you know what, I'm-- I don't
know if I could take that
feedback, but it's certainly not
something that I put that much
energy in right now.
And then how do you talk
to the person about that
if they're an important
person in your life?
And then how do you also
mitigate the effect?
Because just saying, well, too
bad I'm not going to change
is OK in some cases,
but not in others.
So then how do we
work around the fact
that I leave my purse and
wallet and credit cards
behind most of the time?
It's a personality
trait I've worked on
for many, many,
many decades now.
It's so far, no progress, right?
But I am doing small
experiments, right?
Trying to be more organized.
Stopping to check before
I walk out of a building.
DOUGLAS STONE: Stapling your
credit card to your pants.
SHEILA HEEN: Stapling my credit
card, yeah, to my sleeve.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I guess it's a question about
that same sense of time.
You said for Sam and Pete,
it worked for a while.
So how do you have that
upkeep without saying
that you don't have
faith that they're
keeping it up themselves?
SHEILA HEEN: I know.
DOUGLAS STONE: Feedback,
in general, by the way,
sometimes we think
of it as like, well,
that's the thing that happens
at the end of the year.
And I get my evaluation.
And that's my
feedback conversation.
So if I have feedback for
someone, it might be March,
but I'll give it to them
in November or December
during feedback learning time.
And there's a way in
which that makes sense.
Our evaluations come at
a certain time of year.
And that's useful.
But other kinds of feedback,
the kind of feedback
that we would call coaching,
should happen in real time.
If you're at a
stoplight and the person
in front of you is not going and
the light has now turned green,
you wouldn't say to yourself,
well, I'll wait till December
and I'll honk during
honking season.
You would honk now because
this is when it's happening.
So when you have
feedback for someone,
or you'd like to learn
something or receive feedback,
if it's coaching,
just do it now.
In contexts like this, it's
always an ongoing thing.
It's not a, we had
the conversation once,
or we had to have a
reinforcement conversation.
It's going to be
an ever-shifting--
SHEILA HEEN: Yeah, and
it worked for a while
where they were very
consistent about it.
And then they would fall
off the wagon, et cetera.
So the improvement is more
like this than like this.
And they needed to
expect that, expect
that we were going to have
to keep coaching each other
and keep working
pretty hard at it.
We'll close, by the way, because
I'm getting the time signal.
The hook is coming out.
We'll close just with one last
piece of research information
that may be useful to you,
which is that what the studies
show is that people who seek
out negative feedback at work--
and in the literature, what
they mean by negative feedback
is that you're not just going
around fishing for compliments,
you're actually asking what
could I improve-- those people
adapt more quickly to new roles.
They report higher satisfaction.
And they get higher
performance reviews.
And so it's not
just that you elicit
learning that accelerates
your own learning curve.
It's also that asking for
coaching changes the way
other people see you.
And so it can be a powerful
tool to have in your toolbox.
And then you don't have to wait
around for the perfect giver
because mostly our lives are
populated by everybody else.
So we got to learn
how to learn something
from all kinds of givers who
sometimes are off base, unfair.
They deliver it poorly.
And yet we're going to find
something valuable in it.
We're happy to stick around to
answer questions, et cetera.
You guys have an amazing deal
over here to buy the book.
We're asking, like, can we
buy some of those books?
Like, that's a better
price than we get.
Thank you so much for coming.
And good luck.
[APPLAUSE]
