A reframe on feedback

A recurring theme for me these days has been the concept of how we interpret feedback in our lives. Every day in every moment we are receiving feedback from the people around us.

Sometimes it’s obvious, like a performance review, or a critique or praise of your work. Sometimes it’s in the form of how many likes or reshares you get from a blog post. Sometimes it’s whether someone chooses to swipe left or right, based on a profile pic. Sometimes it’s by the body language of a person in a meeting. Sometimes it’s when you’re looking at the pile of overstock in your store, because nobody has chosen to purchase a lime and orange leather coat. It’s safe to say that as long as humans are interacting with each other, feedback can be added to the list of things that you can always depend on – alongside change, death, and taxes.

Often, however, people take feedback personally. They place their own value or worth on someone else’s preferences. They change business models to try to please everyone. They quit writing because of a bad review. And though positive feedback can be super encouraging, the fear of negative feedback can be a huge deterrent for people when it comes to stepping into their passions, their art, their purpose.

In her book “Playing Big”, Tara Mohr teaches that feedback actually tells us absolutely nothing about ourselves or our work. What it DOES tell us is the preferences or desires of the person GIVING the feedback. So say I paint a picture. I show you, and you don’t like it. Does that mean it’s not good? Not at all! It means that YOU don’t like it. Maybe you don’t like abstracts. Maybe you don’t like green. Maybe you don’t like art at all! Your feedback doesn’t tell me a single thing about my skill as an artist. It only tells me about your preference in art.

I recently was in a meeting where I felt that a coworker threw me under the bus in front of a group of volunteers. He brought up a website I had created 5 years ago and proceeded over and over to point out the flaws – the template of the registration form, the price of the event, the lack of professionalism, the wording, whether it was worthy of the person it was honouring … In the moment I was furious. Livid. Embarrassed. How dare he make me look bad in front of other people? If I hadn’t been on the inside of the booth, or if the table had not been bolted down, I likely would have flipped it and stormed out. He was a lucky man that I didn’t have a fork to stab in his eye.

I fumed through the rest of the meeting, and when it was done, left without a word to him. On my way home I continued to chew on my anger. My heart was racing, my nose was flared – I was furious.

But then I remembered what Tara had said.

His feedback didn’t have anything to do with my work.

I took a deep breath and made an attempt to reframe it. Maybe he didn’t realize that it was the only template I was allowed to use at the time. He obviously didn’t realize that for that event, just like this one, I had no administrative or graphic design support, and that I actually had to create the graphic using a combination of screenshots, MS Word and MS Paint. Maybe he had just had too many glasses of wine at the meeting.

Either way, I had to believe that in his convoluted, obnoxious way, what his feedback told me was how I could improve for this next event. Where he said that the website was “horrific”, I could take as the need for a simpler, more up to date look. When he mentioned that the previous event, a retirement party, was “purgatory” for the newcomer, I could take into consideration those feelings in planning the evening’s proceedings. I can still kick him in the shins for being an asshole about it all, but I don’t have to take it as a slight on my work or my worth.

Slowly I am learning to incorporate this newfound practice into my day to day living. And what’s really neat is how much you can learn about other people through their own feedback. You learn whether someone likes tomatoes or not, based on whether they eat what you serve them, where before you may have been offended, or felt you were a bad cook. You learn where people’s core values lie based on whether they want to support your fundraiser or not. You learn someone’s political views by how they comment on your Facebook posts. Once you stop taking things personally, it’s amazing how curious you can get about other people’s preferences by analyzing their feedback.

Sometimes it is important, however, to listen to someone’s feedback. If you want to grow your business, you may want to learn what your audience is interested in, or what your investors are willing to support. If your wife tells you she will leave you if you don’t quit drinking, you have a choice to make. If someone asks you to refrain from spray-painting your art on the side of their building, it would behoove you to listen. The key is to ask for, weigh, and incorporate, feedback only from those people that have a vested interest in whatever you are pursuing.

Ultimately, we are only responsible for our actions and reactions. You can always choose to take or leave feedback. But it’s important to look at whose feedback you are taking or leaving. Because your mom will always be fearful for your safety. A spouse may worry about the mortgage or the kids. A boss will hopefully be thinking of the bigger picture. And an investor usually votes with their money.

So choose wisely.

If you’re interested in more of what Tara Mohr has to say in the subject, you can start with THIS VIDEO.