How to Manage Your Fear of Feedback

Intellectually we know that feedback makes us better. But emotionally it’s easy to resist or fear feedback. Maybe it’s part of being human. Software engineers are nervous about code reviews, or at least I always was. What kind of stupid mistake was someone going to find in my code? Writers dread getting back notes from their editors, even though it’s one of the last milestones on the way to being published. Even when we’re seeking feedback, it can be scary. 

If we’re freaked out, or even just trying to keep from freaking out, we might not take feedback gracefully. Or, overcome by our emotional response, we don’t hear the feedback accurately and lose out altogether on the benefit. That’s a sad situation: all the pain, and none of the reward!

So how can you set yourself up to be more receptive to feedback? Even if you’re still scared, you can change how you handle that fear. And with time and practice feedback can truly start to feel more like a gift. No single thing is to answer this for every situation. Here’s a list of things for you to try out that have worked for me and other folks.

• Think of the giver as your partner in crime.  Feedback isn’t about you, it’s about this piece of work. Think of yourself sitting next to the person giving feedback looking at the thing as peers. You’re in this together, trying to craft it into the best version of itself. 
• Don’t react at all in the moment. Focus solely on understanding the feedback. Don’t judge the feedback, don’t decide if it’s useful or not, or even if it’s positive or negative. Just focus on understanding it intellectually. Later, when you’re alone, and after some time has passed, from an hour to a day, analyze the feedback, and if you need to, feel the feelings. 
• Process with a friend. Maybe after getting some feedback, you’re stumped. When I was a software architect, I got some feedback from my new manager that I didn’t think was accurate but if it was accurate I sure wanted to deal with it. Since my manager was new, I talked to a fellow software architect I’d worked with for a long time. He was able to reassure me the feedback wasn’t accurate and help me brainstorm ways to demonstrate that. I’d tell you what the feedback was, but I honestly don’t remember. I do remember my buddy helping me out when I was freaking out over the feedback. And I knew if there had been something there, he would have told me and helped me fix that, as well. 
• Seek multiple sources and choose what to use.  If you’re trying to get better at something, or have a piece of work that will have a large audience, don’t just rely on one source of feedback. By soliciting multiple points of view, you can be in the driver’s seat and parse through the data to decide what is helpful to achieve your goals. 
• Focus on your end goal. If you have specific end goals—giving a killer presentation, making the user onboarding easy, getting approval for a bold proposal—think of what difficulties you’d willingly go through to achieve those goals. When I managed engineers I used to tell them, “no one will remember who reviewed your code, they’ll just remember you wrote something that worked.” When you keep your overall goal in mind, the sting of criticism becomes just another step on the road to your goal. 
• Model the behavior you want in others. If you’re someone who is sometimes in a position to provide feedback—perhaps you’re a senior engineering, or a manager, or a product manager who often has to give feedback to engineering, design, and marketing—here’s a great chance for you to demonstrate how to be open to feedback. Sometimes it’s easier to do something for other people, the people for whom you want to set the example, in this case, that it is do it for yourself. This is an altruistic version of “fake it until you make it!”

Feedback doesn’t need to be scary! And it will help you accomplish great things. 

Your Dot Release: Pick one of the tools above to try out the next time you get feedback. Drop me a note and let me know how it went!

Release Notes: Portland folks, I’ve got two events coming up to help you be great at talking about your accomplishments, and at helping others brag better, too. On Friday, April 4 at 11 am I’ll be leading a free bragging workshop sponsored by the Metro Innovation Hub. 

On Thursday, May 15 from 5 to 7, Kathryn Latham and I will be leading a speed bragging networking event as part of Portland Startup Week.  I’d love to see you at either of these free events!

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