Giving feedback is a tricky topic (even positive feedback): how Mindfulness can help

As human being, giving and receiving feedback is essential to our social life. In a professional environment, giving feedback can be one of the most effective ways to help employees and build a productive team. In addition to helping people improve their performance, well-delivered feedback can be a gift of powerful insights that can help an employee grow. Well, that is the theory.

Feedback is often presented in a simplistic way

Quite often giving feedback is presented in a simplistic way with acronyms to remember the steps as if we were talking about something simplistic where we only need to follow instructions to make it work.

Instruction—telling people what steps to follow or what factual knowledge they’re lacking—can be truly useful. But giving a feedback is far more complex because the human dimension plays a central role and following procedures or instructions does not guarantee that the feedback will be as fruitful as expected.

Much is at stake

Giving feedback is not only saying to others how we think they have been doing on a particular task, but it goes deeper than that and challenges the perception we have of ourselves and our identity. If you ask a person to recall the times she was praised when she was at school or at work, she will remember a few occasions. But if you ask her when she was treated unfairly or singled out for criticism – you will hear far more.

We have all in mind the experience of bad feedback whether it was at school, or from our parents, or at work, and can remember how it affected our thinking, our feelings and how we felt it in our body. Instead of being able to take what is interesting for us in that feedback, we are going to be defensive, maybe counterattack or hide our real personality which will lead to less engagement to avoid being in that situation again.

What neurosciences knows about feedback

Multiple studies show that critical feedback actually impedes learning by invoking a fight or flight reaction. That’s right. When you criticize someone, a primal part of their brain senses danger and switches into survival mode. This in turn shuts down the neocortex most needed for creativity and receptivity. We are then unable to learn from that criticism!

To play its role and protect us, the brain never stops scanning for input to determine threat or reward whether we’re talking to our boss, best friend, or significant other.
Even though cognitive strategies might mitigate our responses, if the feedback/criticism is important enough, it can trigger a limbic response in us that engages the well-known flight or fight mechanism.
Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are secreted into the blood stream and accumulate in the amygdala. 

How to give meaningful feedback?

As giving feedback has become a leadership priority in many organizations, much of it is often unsolicited, unnecessary and even counterproductive. We must first ask ourselves why we want to give feedback. Is it important, relevant, what is the expected outcome, is it really going to bring a sustainable change, or do I do this feedback because I strengthen my hierarchical position?

The question coming next is when? Giving feedback will emotionally involve both parts, so we must be clear on our emotional state before starting. If we are anxious, or angry, we shall not be in a position to communicate in a meaningful way and our message will be for sure distorted. We must also make sure that the receiver is also in the right emotional state to have that conversation. The feedback must take place as close as possible to the event you want to correct otherwise it reduces its impact.

Then comes the where.  Quickly done between doors, like “by the way I want to tell you something” will not create the right conditions to make it work. It leads us then to the atmosphere we need to create. Respectful, compassionate, with empathy so that the message can be heard and understood in a positive way.

What are we going to say? It seems obvious, but giving feedback needs a real preparation. To facilitate the learning the feedback must start with what the person already does well. Buckingham and Goodall explain: “According to brain science, people grow far more neurons and synaptic connections where they already have the most neurons and synaptic connections. In other words, each brain grows most where it’s already strongest.” Reminding people of what they do well can help them call upon these resources to address new challenges.

Moreover, many studies suggest that, for survival reasons, we are more likely to remember negative experiences over positive ones and notice the negative more than the positive. When applied in the context of a feedback that implies that we must include far more positive items than negative ones. This will of course need to be adapted to the person and her level of performance.

The How requires quite a lot of attention. You should choose words to describe a situation precisely to make it as factual as possible. Saying words like “from my point of view” will indicate that we do not pretend to know the truth, and will leave room for discussion.

But the body language is also very important. Though the activity of mirror neurons, we are activating parts of our interpersonal brains that send signals far quicker than the words we are arranging in our pre-frontal cortex. Body language matters, even in an era of virtual communication. Tone of voice is a critical carrier of our message.

How Mindfulness  can help?

The practice of Mindfulness helps increase self-awareness, so that practitioners can better choose their moment to give a feedback when they are emotionally stable. They are also more aware of their cognitive bias and thinking patterns and will pay attention when they feel they are influenced by them.

Being really present in the moment will increase the communication skills and more specifically the listening skills, but will also show to the receiver that the conversation is important as he benefits from our full attention.

But the practice should also lead to more empathy and compassion to really take care of the other person’s feelings and emotions, and always be conscious of the impact that words may have to be in a position to make adjustments if needed.