How do you receive feedback.

[Orquid]

I work for a large very corporate organisation; but most of my previous experience come from non corporate environments so not used to frequent feedback.

How do you receive feedback? Just nod and say thank you for the feedback; do you speak out if you think something is not totally correct, and reflect and try to improve on the things you agree with.

I remember receiving very negative feedback from my boss on something that was not correct; they were under a lot stress and blamed me for something that it was someone else responsibility previously; a new task I took over and I actually fixed some errors. I did speak out on that ocassion; after a few months they have come down, realised what I have done and were very grateful for it.

I don’t mind confrontation but I notice that most people just prefer to keep quiet, say nothing, avoid confrontation.

Do most people just play the game? Go along with things.? Even if they think they are wrong. I am not english and prefer to be direct and to the point which is not the English way.

I know this isn't that helpful but I think the answer is it depends. I do think on the whole the English/British way is less direct than (some of) our continental European friends. Everyone is different of course but as a nation we can tend towards more passive aggressiveness or moaning/griping or simply putting up/shutting up rather than giving lots of direct feedback. That can mean it's less usual or common to be the recipient of such feedback and often can mean people take any comments about them or their work at all as an automatic conflict and react very personally and get upset, angry or defensive. Certainly I personally have to manage my emotions around work feedback particularly if it's given in person/verbally (I'm not talking about comments/corrections on a document or whatever) quite carefully, my immediate reaction is often catastrophising / panic , which means I'm not actually listening properly to what they're saying as my mind is going a million miles an hour, so I tend to try to force myself to just listen quietly and take in initially. I might ask some clarification questions or if there's an obvious factual misunderstanding I might say so, but in general I prefer to try and understand what they've said and absorb and think about it myself in private then decide what to do with it.

If on reflection I think the feedback isn't valid and/or there's been a mistake or misunderstanding I can decide either to just let it go/let it be (which I might decide to do if it isn't something very important/or that's an ongoing issue, I might feel it isn't worth coming over as defensive or argumentative or whatever by making a big deal of putting my side across), or I might decide to email or speak again to that person where I can explain the actual facts carefully and in a structured/calm/logical way. I might decide that actually there are some useful things to take forward from that person's point of view even if they don't have the full picture / full facts. E.g. I once got some feedback from a senior manager that my client service was poor because I had refused to provide a client a service they had asked for from me that in no way was part of our SLA and wasn't within my area of expertise/something our company was able to offer anyway. My immediate reaction was to argue with the feedback person - how on earth was I supposed to be able to help the client with this at all? But on reflection what he was trying to say was it was the way I'd said no rather than the fact I'd said no that was the problem. Apparently I had come across as brushing the request off when I could have taken more time to listen to what they wanted and why, and perhaps give them some advice as to where they could get that service rather than just saying no. So although I still did feel the senior manager was being overly picky, in the end I did take that forward for my future interactions with that client as that was the corporate 'style' they wanted.

If you have a good manager, a feedback discussion should genuinely be a chance for the two of you to have an honest, reflective discussion about what has gone well / badly and what your aims are for the future. Some managers are better at this than others!