The art of receiving feedback

What is it about feedback? It has the power to help us improve and achieve more, but it can also be very destructive and difficult.

I was recently in a conversation with the support team of a software package we use. I was trying to highlight a potential problem, but ended the conversation with a feeling of immense frustration. The reason for my frustration was astonishingly simple: I didn't receive an acknowledgement of what I tried to explain.

Acknowledging someone giving feedback is a simple-yet-hard-to-do trick. It allows us to put ourselves in the other person's shoes. It helps build empathy and allows us to really understand what the other person is saying. When we acknowledge what the other person is saying, we also come across less defensive. This helps build better relationships.

In our industry, receiving feedback is part and parcel with what we do: we share work with clients and ask for their feedback. Consumers share more feedback than ever via email and social media. Getting the art of receiving feedback right can pay huge dividends in the long run.

It turns out there are some simple tricks to receiving feedback that I wish I'd learned earlier . If you can follow a simple process, it makes receiving feedback more rewarding and much less difficult.

1. If you’ve asked for feedback, be clear on what you’re asking feedback about
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Are you sharing some initial ideas that haven’t been fleshed out yet? Explain these are some rough ideas and you’re just sharing them to gauge whether it’s something they’d like to explore.

2. Repeat what the other person said back to that person.

This perhaps is the most important part of receiving feedback. Once someone shares feedback with you, it is really helpful to repeat what the other person just said. It shows you understand what the person is trying to communicate. If you’ve misunderstood, it enables you to overcome misunderstandings.

3. Ask if they have any other feedback.


It’s so tempting to start responding to feedback straightaway. Instead, hold back and ask “Is there anything else?”. This ensures you give the other person room to provide any other feedback.

4. Don’t be defensive
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There’s a reason someone is sharing feedback and if it doesn’t seem obvious now, perhaps it may seem more obvious once you've had a chance to think more about it. Once someone shares feedback with you, you should accept it and thank that person. You should then go away and try and think about how you can respond to that feedback.

When I think about it, some of the best feedback I’ve received has been after we’ve lost a pitch. Initially, the negative feedback always makes me feel rubbish and my guard goes up – that makes me defensive. When I have acknowledged and processed the feedback for some time, I have then been able to understand how I can improve.