Recently, I came across an interesting research publication on attitudes toward giving and receiving feedback. This topic is particularly important to me, as I personally encounter this challenge both in my private life and professionally.

I was convinced that the period when I felt a strong—and, with age, increasingly strong—need for feedback was behind me. While working with young people, I often felt that this is the stage in life when feedback is crucial. In our teens and early twenties, we are discovering who we are. As we face adulthood and independence, we continuously adjust our self-image. Confronted with new challenges, we learn who we truly are. It is precisely at this stage that we need someone to support us with their perspective.

Feedback vs. Young People

 

It is also a period in our lives when we are not always ready for the truth—that we are not managing as well as we thought, or that things are completely different from our expectations. The bubble bursts, and its interior differs from what we imagined. In other words, this is a time for adjusting our self-image to reality. Feedback accelerates and enhances the quality of this process.

In a business context, feedback allows you to determine:

 

• what I am suited for,
• what I might struggle with,
• how I can leverage my strengths (wow, I actually have strengths?),
• what I can still work on.

 

Since the “material” (i.e., young people aged 18–26) is delicate, working with feedback requires utmost subtlety—a specific mix of empathy, positive framing, good intentions, and honesty. However, as we grow older, the role of feedback does not diminish. On the contrary—it continues to increase. By then, we already know who we are, what we are like, what we need to watch out for, and what comes naturally to us. Often, we act intuitively, yet we still have a need for development that drives us to perform better and more effectively.

 

What does a lack of feedback do to us?

 

I deeply believe and feel that every person needs to become more than they are today. To do this, we need verification—not of who we are, but of how we are doing, where we currently stand, and where we can or want to be in the future.

Of course, not everyone expresses this with the same enthusiasm, and not everyone openly admits it. What are the consequences? Neglecting this process can have catastrophic effects. A lack of development and self-confrontation pushes our potential and opportunities away from our real life, and eventually even the thought of death can become frightening. As the role of feedback changes, so too does its style and approach.

 

Maturing Toward Feedback

 

In the article I mentioned at the beginning, I found confirmation of my previous assumptions, and today I can already speak of a certain trend emerging in this area.

The article I am referring to is Feedback: The Powerfull Paradox by Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman. In it, the authors refer to research they conducted online, showing that, contrary to the common belief that feedback is mainly needed by people in their twenties, the older we get, the more significant it becomes and the more we need it. Moreover, we need not only to receive feedback but also to give it.

Interestingly, according to the authors, as we age, our need to receive constructive criticism increases the most, as it allows us to evaluate our actions and improve them.

This confirms my assumption that, as we age, we need a slightly different form of feedback—one that not only reinforces us but also fosters growth and helps us adjust our actions. However, as Zenger and Folkman note, age and experience do not change our attitude toward giving constructive criticism to others.

This means that we still need constructive criticism, but our willingness to give it to others is practically nonexistent. It’s not that we don’t want to receive it or won’t accept it—rather, most of us will avoid, like the plague, situations in which we might give someone constructive criticism, or, as it is commonly called, negative feedback.

 

Fear of Feedback

 

I am often asked how to make others willing to receive my feedback while not taking it personally. I usually respond that it’s a very good question—but I don’t know the answer. Why? It’s simple—we don’t have the power to make people act according to our intentions. These questions usually lead me to the real issue, which goes something like this: the problem isn’t in my head, but in the heads of others.

 

In response, I usually ask: why don’t you give feedback? The answers I most often hear are along the lines of:

• because I might offend someone,
• because I might damage my relationship with that person,
• because I might hear something in return that I don’t want to hear.

Notice, then, that this is a list of fears we struggle with in our own minds. In such situations, I share with people insights from a personality psychology concept—Eric Berne’s transactional analysis.

Transactional Analysis – what is it?

 

According to this concept, our personality consists of three ego states: the Parent, the Child, and the Adult. In brief, the Parent governs norms, rules, and expectations; the Child is responsible for our impulses and desires; and the Adult takes a logical, fact-based approach to the world. The Adult tends to focus more on consequences and facts, placing less emphasis on rules and whims. In short:

• The Parent represents our “musts” and “shoulds”
• The Child represents our “I may” and “I want”
• The Adult represents our “I choose this because…”

 

Each of us has a representation of all three ego states. In relationships—with others and with ourselves—one of these states will often respond to the state of the person we are interacting with. To illustrate this, I like to use the metaphor of a dance, where I invite another person to dance. They can choose to dance with me in sync, or they may want to dance something entirely different. The dance I invite someone to, and their response, are called transactions. These transactions can be complementary or crossed.

Complementary transactions are like a dance in which the partner follows my steps. Sometimes during training sessions, someone might ask me if they can go to the restroom (the Child state asking for permission). In doing so, they are addressing my Parent state. I can then respond complementarily by giving permission—in this case, everyone behaves according to the “game” that was initiated, so no conflict arises in the relationship.

I could also respond from the Adult state—for example, “I don’t know. You decide.” In that case, I would be inviting the other person into their Adult state, interrupting the “game” and creating a certain dissonance, which would most likely end the dance. This would be an example of a crossed transaction.

In this way, different ego states can “play” with each other in various ways, shaping and building our relationships with the world.

When we apply this theory to feedback, we see that each ego state delivers it differently. The Parent, expressing approval or disapproval, usually addresses the Child state of the other person. The Child, expressing emotions—saying something is fun and enjoyable, or that they dislike something—also directs their message to the Child state of the other person. The Adult, on the other hand, uses the language of facts and consequences, directing it to the other person’s Adult state.

When we look at the fear that arises at the mere thought of giving constructive criticism, it becomes clear that we associate our actions with feedback from the Parent state to the Child state. This is, in fact, the type of feedback we most often encountered throughout our lives—over many years of education—and unfortunately, often in its most destructive form. Usually, it is this experience (since we ourselves were on the receiving end) that shapes in us the sense that giving criticism is damaging.

In summary…

 

Today, however, we can choose—because what matters is not what was done to us, but what we do with it (to quote Sartre). Let’s use our experience and knowledge, and focus on what we can do to avoid negative effects while providing others with what they need to become better versions of themselves.

How? It’s both simple and challenging. Challenging, because it requires us to set aside our opinions and biases and replace them with the language of the Adult—focusing on facts and consequences, and taking responsibility for our own emotions.

Michał Śmiałowski

 

Bibliography:

J. Zenger, J. Folkman, Feedback: The Powerful Paradox: https://zengerfolkman.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/08/ Feedback-the-Powerful-Paradox_WP-2019.pdf

E. Berne, Games People Play , PWN, Warszawa 2019.