Giving feedback is like a hand grenade. No matter how positive a spin you put on it, criticism is still hard to hear. So what can we do differently in tough conversations for a better outcome? Assistant professor Rachel Ruttan shares best practices from her research on advice-giving...and getting.
Giving feedback is like a hand grenade. No matter how positive a spin you put on it, criticism is still hard to hear. So what can we do differently in tough conversations for a better outcome? Assistant professor Rachel Ruttan shares best practices from her research on advice-giving...and getting.
Show notes
[0:00] “I read this book called difficult conversations. And they use this analogy, any kind of tough or difficult conversation, like negative feedback is basically hand grenade. no matter how much you dress up the hand grenade, it's still a hand grenade. So I think, in the role of giving that tough news or information or feedback, it's good to just accept the difficulty of that conversation going in and to be compassionate to yourself.”
[0:25] Meet Rachel Ruttan, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour who studies how to navigate difficult motivational tensions. She explores topics including how to make giving advice and feedback more palatable.
[1:28] Her interest stems from the sometimes compassionate, sometimes harsh world of competitive figure skating.
[2:16] How we hear and internalize feedback will influence whether or not we take the advice.
[3:37] To create a space where people are more welcoming of receiving feedback, Rachel suggest setting goals and expectations at the outset.
[4:10] The “Feedback Sandwich” is real, and it works.
[4:33] Advice is best received when your team believes you have their best interest at heart – and that your team is a safe place to take risks.
[5:13] Giving advice shouldn’t be a one-way street; people may have their own suggestions on how to improve performance.
[5:43] Be aware that your own emotions can get in the way. Don't give feedback in anger.
[6:37] And how can you provide feedback to a superior? Try framing issues and suggestions you might have as questions.
[8:00] Negative feedback is part of every career – consider talking to colleagues about the harsh criticism they've received over their careers to help normalize it.
[8:52] The TV show The Voice offers a fantastic lens into how we pick our mentors. It turns out, we’re drawn to mentors who shower us in positivity, even if someone a bit more negative might be a better fit for us.
[10:43] Social support and positivity are important, but so is a person’s success at mentorship. Ideally, you would have mentors who can do both.
[11:51] “We spend a lot of our time imagining what other people think, and want to hear, and what the right thing is for somebody to do. But we also know from a lot of literature that we're actually really bad at perspective taking. It's hard, you don't know what's going on in someone else's mind. So just ask them. Again, this sounds so simple, but I think it's something that we can forget to do along the way.”
RR: I read this book called difficult conversations. And they use this analogy, any kind of tough or difficult conversation, like negative feedback is basically hand grenade. no matter how much you dress up the hand grenade, it's still a hand grenade. So I think, in the role of giving that tough news or information or feedback, it's good to just accept the difficulty of that conversation going in and to be compassionate to yourself.
JP: That’s Rachel Ruttan, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human resources at the Rotman School of Management. Through her research, Rachel explores how people navigate difficult motivational tensions.
RR: Things like being compassionate versus giving tough love. How do we have very difficult conversations about negative feedback, about grief? How do you approach all these difficult social dynamics at the workplace and beyond?
JP: Regardless of your role or seniority level at work, giving someone advice or constructive feedback can feel like a delicate art. Is there a formula to make these conversations go as smoothly as possible? What does the research say about constructive criticism and performance? Is there ever a right time to deliver negative feedback to a coworker?
Welcome to The Executive Summary. I’m Jessie Park.
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JP: Rachel’s interest in constructive criticism comes from an unlikely source... life on the ice.
RR: In a former life, before I did my undergrad studies, I was a competitive figure skater. This is a really intense culture around feedback and different orientations around feedback giving. And there are some communities that are really supportive and positive. And I completely understood the pull of that. But I could also observe that there were these training groups that were really much more critical in nature, super tough, oriented, not a lot of kindness, compassion, and they were yielding results as well. So I always thought this was an interesting tension between seeking out positivity and connection versus a real results driven culture.
JP: There’s lots of research in the fields of psychology and organizational behaviour finding that constructive criticism – when it’s heard and internalized – is great for long-term performance.
RR: The key issue here is getting people to hear it because we also have this strong motivation to view ourselves in a rosy light. And a lot of research has found that when people are processing this information defensively, not taking it in fully, performance either doesn't improve or it can get worse. It can backfire because people start to feel judged. They don't feel like the environment is supportive. So at its best, constructive criticism is the best ingredient to get people to be their best selves. But at its worst, it can really backfire.
JP: How do you tell a team member they need to change their approach to a project they’re not only passionate about, but thought they were acing? Or how do you inform a colleague that their behaviour is unacceptable, and they should be more professional in a team setting?
It can be especially challenging when that person just isn’t ready to hear what you have to say. When someone can’t internalize that feedback – for whatever reason – they might deny it’s a problem, or make an issue of the person giving the advice. And, if you – the advice giver – don’t deliver the news well, that might further aggravate the problem.
Rachel says there are a few key things to consider when it comes to constructing feedback that’s likely to be well received. First, both parties should seek to understand their shared goals and values upfront.
RR: So before you launch into any sort of negative feedback, or anything, just making sure that you're on the same page as to ‘Well, what exactly is it that we're trying to achieve here? What do we both want out of this? What are our underlying interests? And how do we get there?’ So just making sure that everybody's on the same page in terms of what the goals are, is a great first step.
JP: Next, you want to make a bit of a meal of your advice.
RR: So of course, the person is going to be having done some things right, too. It's almost cliche now, but the idea of the feedback sandwich is very real, it can be very helpful.
So this idea, like, here are things that that you're doing great. Here's one area for improvement. Now let's talk about how we can actually concretely implement that in the long run, I think can really help especially at the beginning of a relationship.
Another thing to consider is the notion of psychological safety – establishing that this is a place where you have your team’s best interests at heart and it’s safe to take risks.
RR: If I, as a supervisor, for instance, I've made it really, really clear to subordinates or employees that I really do believe in you, and I'm here to support your career, those little individual nuggets of negative feedback are gonna sting less, because they're in the context of this supportive relationship. I think people sometimes hear this idea of safety and think of it as just fuzzy and politeness, but it's actually really about candor. It's just the context in which that candor is happening is super important.
JP: And while it’s tempting to launch into your feedback right away, have to give in your next meeting, it’s also wise to take a step back and remember: advice-giving is a two-way street. They might even have their own thoughts on how to improve things.
RR: Also ask them questions. So things like, Well, what do you think you could improve about your performance and hearing from them, and listening to their concerns before launching right in. it signals listening, it signals openness, and it signals this idea of safety as well.
JP: And remember you’re human, too.
RR: As the feedback giver, you're dealing with your own emotions, too. And sometimes if something really disastrous has happened, you're angry, you're upset. And people are often concerned about how their employees reflect on them. So your own pride and esteem is wrapped up into it too.
Anger is an agentic oriented emotion and we want to act on it. But usually, this leads to actions that you might regret once you're out of that state. So in general, I think taking your time sitting in those feelings and waiting until you're back to just a cooler state to let a level head prevail, can be the good thing to do even though that might not be your gut instinct in the moment.
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JP: Giving constructive feedback to a peer or someone you get along with is one thing, but what about when you’re dealing with someone with more seniority than you?
While there’s data to support that managers who accept and internalize feedback lead more successful teams, getting there is difficult, especially if you’re the deliverer of this upward feedback.
Rachel says framing becomes crucial when giving feedback up the chain of command, and she suggests leaning more on the side of asking questions to lead the discussion, rather than giving them outright directives.
RR: So we could take the example of say someone who's really domineering in group meetings, you might have a manager who doesn't let anybody speak up, and that's becoming an issue. How do you approach that? It's not going to go great if you just walk in and say, “Oh, you're a jerk in meetings, and nobody wants to talk.” Maybe frame that as a question and kind of appeal to their ego in a way. So to be like, “Okay, well, I've noticed maybe not everybody is speaking out as much as they should in the meeting.” You're not making the problem necessarily about them, but about the group and then saying, What do you think we could do about this? What are some solutions? You're getting them on the same page, that there's an issue without making it this hierarchically inappropriate directive?
JP: On the flip side, hearing negative feedback is never easy. Rachel says internalizing feedback in a helpful way is possible with practice – and it all starts with normalizing it.
RR: I like to keep a lot of exemplars in mind, who have shared examples of struggle earlier in their career. If you go to any senior colleague and ask if they've faced something similar, people love to talk about that. And you can really open up and realize that even people who are aspirational figures to you have gone through similar things, and they've managed to overcome it. It's nothing about you as a person, it's just tough career milestones to get over. And that's okay, everyone has these experiences. It's a step to get through on the way to achieving your goals.
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JP: A good mentor can completely transform someone’s career outcomes. When Rachel was completing her PhD program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, she and her peers spent a lot of time in the student lounge where the TV show The Voice often played in the background.
In the show, aspiring singers compete against each other while being mentored by some of the biggest names in music – like Christina Aguilera, CeeLo Green, Blake Shelton or Katy Perry. The key is that the singers get to choose their coaches, and not the other way around.
RR: In a lot of ways it makes sense if you're, say a country musician that you would choose Blake, who is also an expert in country music, but not everybody was making these decisions that seem based around coach expertise or experience. And we were really curious what was actually going on behind that.
JP: She turned that curiosity in a research paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology with co-authors Julia Hur and Catherine Shea. If selecting a good advisor is crucial for success, why did some people choose advisors with expertise that didn’t match up with their goals?
RR: when we started looking into it, started coding multiple seasons of The Voice, what we found is that people were really selecting on positivity, or this idea of expressed positivity. So just somebody being so excited to work with you thinking how talented and great you are, which makes sense, right? Because, you know, it feels nice to be loved. And these coaches are great at convincing people that they're the right one to work with. It became this persuasion tactic of hey, I think you're awesome, you're so great. I'm so excited to work with you. So In the spirit of this expressed positivity and emotion, a lot of the singers were selecting on this instead of something like genre fit, which might make more sense in the long run.
JP: This can give us clues about how to seek valuable mentorship in a work setting. Should you gravitate towards a mentor who will shower you with positivity and empowerment, or willingly seek out someone who may give you harsh feedback from time to time?
RR: Social support is critical as is giving constructive criticism. I think you can ideally do both. But I think when people are really focused on selecting who to have mentor them, I would encourage to avoid this kind of blindness around positivity. Of course, clicking with someone is great, them being excited about you is great. But all else equal, it's really important to also look at that person’s say history and mentoring success. They might be really good at a sales pitch, but how have they done in the past with training people? Do they have a solid record? Are they really good at the dimension on which you're trying to improve?
JP: Giving helpful advice, seeking feedback from mentors and navigating constructive criticism – these conversations are rarely easy, Rachel says it never hurts to seek the other person’s perspective.
RR: We spend a lot of our time imagining what other people think, and want to hear, and what the right thing is for somebody to do. But we also know from a lot of literature that we're actually really bad at perspective taking. It's hard, you don't know what's going on in someone else's mind. So just ask them. Again, this sounds so simple, but I think it's something that we can forget to do along the way.
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JP: This has been Rotman Executive Summary, a podcast bringing you the latest insights and innovative thinking from Canada's leading business school.
Special thanks to Assistant Professor Rachel Ruttan. We’ll be back next week with Associate Professor Kevin Bryan to talk about the crisis in innovation.
This episode was written and produced by Jessie Park and Megan Haynes. It was recorded by Dan Mazzotta, and edited by Avery Moore-Kloss.
For more innovative thinking, head over to the Rotman Insights Hub, and subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts, or Soundcloud.
Thanks for tuning in.