The Power of Feedback: 35 Principles for Turning Feedback from Others into Personal and Professional Change

CHAPTER 1

Reacting to Feedback

The process of giving thousands of people feedback on their individual performance has uncovered several clear and defined principles of feedback that generally apply in most interactions involving feedback. We begin by discussing each of those principles.

PRINCIPLE 1

Asking others for input increases their expectation that you will change in a positive way.

Many who receive feedback turn that feedback into measurable change. However, others receiving feedback do not change. This frustrates not only those receiving the feedback, but also those providing the feedback. This leads to a second principle.

PRINCIPLE 2

If you receive feedback but do not change for the better, you will be perceived more negatively than if you had not received feedback.

You can compound your negative feedback by ignoring or rejecting it. When people receive feedback, they react. Their reactions may range from extremely negative to extremely positive, or there may be no visible reaction at all. Regardless of the reaction, a third principle emerges.

PRINCIPLE 3

You will not change what you do not believe needs to be changed.

A personal feedback experience is fundamentally different from looking at a production report or an accounting statement. Even though someone may provide feedback in a way that leaves no room for doubt or difficulty in understanding, this does not necessarily guarantee that people will believe the feedback, or that they will act on it. Those ...