Quick tips
- Name the defensiveness silently to yourself.
- Take one slow exhale before you reply.
- Ask wetin better for don look like.
Somebody go say, "I fit give you some feedback?" and your body go answer before your mind answer. The belle go drop small. The face go warm. A defense go assemble imself for your head, fully formed, before the person don finish their second sentence. By the time wey dem reach the actual point, you no dey listen anymore. You dey rehearse your rebuttal.
If na you be that, you no be thin-skinned and you no dey do anything wrong. You be human, and your reaction old pass any job wey you don ever get. The trick no be to stop to feel am. The trick na to know wetin e be, so e go stop to run the conversation.
The flinch na physical first
Here na the part wey most advice on feedback dey skip. Defensiveness no be decision wey you make. Na reflex wey dey fire before the deciding part of your brain don even weigh in.
Your brain get a fast alarm system, wey dem build to catch threats and react in fraction of a second, well before slower, more deliberate thinking fit catch up. Dem tune am over very long time to keep you safe from things wey fit hurt you. The catch be say e no dey draw clean line between physical threat and social one. To that ancient circuitry, to be judged by your group na danger, because for most of human history, to lose your group regard na genuinely survival problem.
Dis no be metaphor. For one well-known study wey dem publish for Science, researchers scan people brain while dem dey quietly exclude dem from a simple online ball-tossing game. To be left out light up a region of the brain wey tie to the distress of physical pain, and the more excluded people feel, the more that region fire. Rejection, in other words, dey register for the body a lot like to get hurt. So when a colleague criticize your work and something inside you recoil, that recoil real. You no dey be dramatic. A genuine alarm dey go off.
The problem na wetin the alarm dey do to the rest of you. When e fire hard, blood and attention dey rush towards to defend yourself and away from the calm, reasoning part of your mind. You dey get faster and narrower exactly when you most need to be slow and open. You dey hear an attack where somebody fit don offer you a gift.
Wetin really dey get triggered
No be all feedback dey sting the same way, and to notice why a particular comment get under your skin na half the work. Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, wey dey teach for Harvard Law School and write a whole book on how to receive feedback well, describe three different tripwires. Once you fit name which one just get hit, you fit stop to react to the wrong thing.
- The first one na about the content. The feedback strike you as wrong, unfair, or just plain off, and your whole energy go into to prove am false. Sometimes e false. But "dis one wrong" na also the most convenient place to hide when feedback right and you no want am to be.
- The second one na about the person. You no fit hear the message because of who dey deliver am. Dem no get standing to talk dis, or dem short with you last week, or dem clearly no understand your job. The feeling about the messenger dey drown out the message, even when the message sound.
- The third one na the deepest. The feedback no just question a choice wey you make, e seem to question who you be. "You miss a step" land as "you careless." "Dis need work" land as "you no good for dis." When your sense of yourself feel at stake, the alarm get loudest, and a small note fit knock you flat.
Most of the time when a piece of feedback wreck your afternoon, na the third one dey do the damage. The actual content minor. Wetin hurt na the story wey you tell yourself about wetin e mean about you.
For the moment, when the flush hit
You no fit think your way out of a reaction wey start for your body. You have to give the body a second to settle first. None of dis require anybody to know say e dey happen.
- Notice am and name am, just to yourself. "I dey get defensive." That quiet, unglamorous act to label wetin you feel dey help bring the reasoning part of your brain back online. You no have to fix the feeling. To name am dey loosen im grip.
- Buy a beat with your breath. One slow exhale, longer pass the inhale, before you talk anything. Dis na the single most reliable way to take the edge off the alarm, and e dey read to everybody else as composure rather than struggle.
- Ask a real question instead of to mount a defense. "You fit say more about wetin you notice?" or "Wetin better for don look like?" Dis dey do two things at once. E dey give you actual information, and e dey give your body the few seconds wey e need to come down one notch.
- Separate the sting from the substance. The hurt na one thing. The point wey dem dey make na another. You fit fully feel the first while you calmly weigh the second. Dem no have to rise and fall together.
- You no have to respond now. "Thank you, I wan sit with dis" na complete and respectable answer. To decide whether feedback right na separate job from to hear am, and e almost always better done once the heat don pass.
That fourth point worth to slow down on. To receive feedback and to agree with am no be the same act. You fit take something in fully, thank the person sincerely, and still conclude on reflection say dem mistaken. Openness for the moment no commit you to anything. E just dey keep the door open long enough to look.
Afterwards, when you fit think again
The most useful work often dey happen one hour or one day later, once the body don quiet and you fit actually consider wetin dem talk.
Try to ask yourself wetin go have to be true for the feedback to be fair, even if your first instinct na say e no fair. You no dey force yourself to agree. You dey check whether your gut reaction dey protect you from something real. Often a grain of truth dey wrapped inside a delivery wey you no like, and the grain na the part wey worth to keep.
E dey help too to widen the frame. One critique na single data point, no be verdict on your worth or your future. If three thoughtful people don name the same thing, that na pattern wey worth to take serious. If na one offhand comment from somebody wey dey get bad day, weigh am accordingly. No be all feedback deserve the same vote.
When you do find something real inside am, try to get specific about wetin dey change. Vague feedback dey breed vague worry. "Be more strategic" fit swirl for your head for a week and accomplish nothing but dread. "Open my next presentation with the recommendation instead of the background" na thing wey you fit actually do on Tuesday. To turn a critique into one small, concrete next step dey do two jobs at once. E dey make the feedback useful, and e dey give the anxious part of you something to hold besides the sting.
And notice the story under the sting. "My manager flag a gap for the report" na fact. "I dey over my head and everybody fit tell" na story wey you layer on top. The fact fit useful. The story usually na just the old alarm, dey exaggerate to keep you safe. You fit thank am for to try and set am down.
When you genuinely disagree
To stay open for the moment no be the same as to cave. Sometimes you go sit with feedback for a day, look am squarely, and decide say e wrong. That allowed. People dey confuse defensiveness and disagreement all the time, and dem no be anything alike. Defensiveness na the body dey slam a door before the message don even enter the room. Disagreement na considered position wey you reach after you don let the message all the way in.
The difference dey show for how you push back. Defensive pushback dey interrupt, dey raise im voice, and dey go after the person. Considered disagreement dey wait, dey repeat the feedback back so the other person know say you actually hear am, and then dey offer your view as a view rather than a verdict. "I hear say the tone of my email read as cold. From where I siddon I was trying to be brief under deadline. Help me understand how e land." You don concede nothing about your judgment, and you don keep the relationship intact.
A quiet trap to watch for na the polite dodge. You go nod, you go talk all the right things, you go thank dem warmly, and then you go waka away with no intention to change anything. E dey feel gracious. Na actually a way to refuse the feedback without the discomfort to talk am. If you don decide to no act on something, e kinder and cleaner to talk why pass to fake agreement and quietly file am for the bin.
To lower the stakes before feedback arrive
Most of wetin dey make feedback hard na say e dey ambush you. E dey arrive unbidden, often at a bad moment, framed by somebody else words, and your alarm dey meet am cold. You get more control over that pass how e feel.
When you ask for feedback instead of to wait to be handed am, the whole encounter dey change shape. You dey choose the timing, so dem no dey blindside you. You dey choose the question, wey dey keep things specific and useful. "Wetin be one thing wey I for don do better for that meeting?" dey far easier to hear pass a vague "so, any thoughts on how I dey do?" And because you invite am, your brain dey read the moment as something wey you dey steer rather than something wey dem dey do to you. The alarm dey stay quieter when na you open the door.
Longer game dey here too. To ask for feedback regularly, in small doses, while things calm, dey build a kind of tolerance. Each ordinary, survivable round dey teach your nervous system say to be critiqued no be the catastrophe wey e keep predicting. The flush dey get smaller over time. You no dey wait to be perfect before anybody allowed to comment. You dey practice the actual skill, wey na to stay steady while you take something in.
When feedback keep to knock you flat
An ordinary version of all dis dey, and a harder version. If most feedback land fine but one or two topics still dey sting, that normal, and the steps wey dey up go carry you a long way.
But if criticism reliably dey send you into a spiral wey last for days, if single critical comment fit convince you say you worthless or say everybody secretly think say you be fraud, if you find yourself dey avoid work, conversations, or whole relationships to dodge the possibility to be judged, that one worth more pass a self-help article. Reactions wey strong like that usually get roots wey run deeper pass any one job, and dem dey tend to ease with the right support. A therapist fit help you trace where the alarm get so loud and turn the volume down. That no be sign say you spoil. Na the same move as to call an expert for anything else wey big pass wetin you fit sort out alone.
The goal was never to stop to care wetin people think. To care na part of to do work wey matter to you. Wetin dey change, with practice, na the size of the gap between the flinch and your response. The flush still dey come. You just stop to let am pick your next sentence. And on the other side of am, more often pass how you go expect, na something true wey you actually need to hear.
Where dis info come from
- Harvard Business Review, Find the Coaching in Criticism (Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen)
- Stone and Heen, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
- Science / PubMed, Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion (Eisenberger, Lieberman, and Williams)
- Harvard Business Review, The Right Way to Process Feedback