Thanks for the Feedback

Companies invest considerable sums every year to train their employees to give feedback. Nonetheless, feedback remains a delicate and often dreaded exercise. In this book, the authors tackle the question from an original perspective: not that of the sender, but that of the recipient. Indeed, the interpretation and concrete application of feedback given depends on the latter. Of course, all feedback isn’t equal; and it is not rare for people to receive feedback that is awkward, vague, or quite simply unfounded. But the authors of Thanks for the Feedback argue that it is possible to draw useful insights from nearly all feedback—regardless of the quality.

The book contains five main sections. The first presents the principal reflexes and biases that sometimes lead us to take feedback badly. According to the authors, they fall into three main categories: the truthfulness accorded to the feedback (what I am hearing seems unfounded, false or useless to me); the relationship with the feedback giver (is this someone I value, with whom I don’t get along, or whom I consider illegitimate to criticize me?); and finally, the effect of the feedback on my identity (it challenges the image I have of myself—for example, I regard myself as charismatic and I was told that I was unconvincing in my presentation). The three subsequent sections provide advice and tools to avoid these pitfalls and to draw useful insights from feedback, even if our initial reflex would have been to reject it. Lastly, a final section is devoted to the techniques to facilitate productive feedback discussions. It also tackles the question of knowing when and how to “say no” to a person whose feedback crosses the line.

Thanks for the Feedback is a practical book that should help everyone take fuller advantage of day-to-day feedback situations in their professional and personal life. Pleasant to read, full of examples and concrete tips, this book is a useful complement to the array of tools designed to make people more comfortable with the feedback exercise.