You Can Shove Your Feedback.....
If You Want To Improve - Embrace the Feedback. It's a gift.
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Feedback is for your benefit - don’t get defensive!
It’s been a weirdly warm October here in England which managed to last throughout the half term school holiday. We took the opportunity to go “up north” here in England to the Peak District National Park.
For those not familiar with the geography of the North of England it lies slap bang in in the middle of the triangle between Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield; northern cities that drove the industrial revolution back in the day which has left a fascinating imprint on the landscape.
I’ve included a photo below so you can see the pure beauty of this area at this time of year. The leaves are now very much on the turn now and the sun is low enough in the sky to bounce off the dewy ground.
So that’s where we pick up this story of how to deal with feedback. And, there are definitely things we can all take away from this.
We stayed in an Airbnb on the edge of town. We’d never been to Glossop before - it looked nice so decided to book it. It was a last minute booking as we didn’t really know whether we’d be moving house this week (that’s a story for another day).
The house ticked all the boxes for us and all was good….until we gave a little bit of feedback on the journey home.
We take the view that if we see something that could be improved we make the point in the private message back to the owner - not the public view. It could be something about a kitchen utensil missing. Something small that could be addressed easily.
The only thing we would say in the public comment is if the bed was too soft or just plain bad. That is something we really value reading about so we’d say something about that.
This is the reply we got from the owner…within the hour:
Can you please offer me a little more insight into the reasons for particular ratings…
All good so far. Seeking clarification is always important if you aren’t sure on what was being said.
Why would it not be 5 stars for cleanliness?
This one could be easily answered. We found an old sock under one of the beds, the balcony was covered in leaves making it slippery and the kitchen cupboards smelled funny.
It was more the tone with this question. It could have been phrased better - possibly in a less confrontational way.
But that was just the warm up….
Why would the location not be 5 stars, the exact location is listed, surely you wouldn’t have booked it if it wasn’t perfect for you?
Wow, where do we go with this one!
Firstly, we had never been to Glossop before so how could we have possibly known whether it was going to be perfect. We had a rough idea but cut us some slack here!
He is also judging that we would only book the place if the location was perfect or that a perfect Airbnb location exists that we could have booked as an alternative. We didn’t expect a perfect location but the question wasn’t about our expectations, it was about how we rated the location.
The location was a 4. People need to know that.
End of.
Again, this was a confrontational tone that was building through the questions.
Why was the value a 3!
Arghrgrhghgrhgh.
Ok, let’s deconstruct the term “value” which can of course mean many different things to different people depending on your view point.
For me, value is how far my expectations are met while considering the price paid.
So, let’s deal with price first up - £198 ($255) per night - so this is not cheap at all.
A higher price pushes up my expectations. We justified the little bit extra to get the hot tub as we thought it would be fun - which is was but it wasn’t amazing.
Then, you layer on the sock, the ok location, a lack of towels and only one sofa being a squeeze for a family of 4, plus my discovery that I don’t really like hot tubs. It gets a 3 for value.
As you can see, the defensive tone built through the questions. We were literally looking to make a number of constructive points so that he could make a few improvements.
To be honest, we probably would have considered booking this again - before the comments we got back. There’s a way of dealing with people that is clearly lost here.
Scanning down the comments I also stumbled on this one where communication had become “abrupt”.
There’s clearly a lesson here for all of us if we want to improve and make progress in life. Honest and sincere feedback is a gift - embrace what is said, take it on the chin and move things forward. Here’s a better approach:
While receiving feedback, breathe slowly and try not to show emotion
After the session, write down how you feel, write the response you would have liked to have given in the moment and get the emotion out
Then, step back, take some time and write down how you will ACTUALLY respond - in a constructive and positive way
I’ve been taught many times to “write the angry email” but to never send it. It’s great to get the emotion out rather than bottle it up and then when you do react directly to someone try to keep the response rational and separate from your emotional response.
Feedback is a fabulous way to help improve how you do things. Kicking those giving the feedback is not going to get you anywhere.
Have you ever given feedback that has landed badly? How did you handle it?
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Thanks for reading - see you in the comments.
Martin
I worked with someone last year who couldn’t receive even positive feedback. It was bizarre. She’d ask for help on something then shoot down every solution presented to her, whoever by. Though she’s (technically) been in education slightly longer than I have, she’s going backwards in her career while I’m moving forwards and I truly believe it is all down to our differing willingness to take on feedback and learn from our colleagues.
Some people are just bullies.