You know, feedback is a gift - treat it like one!
Me: Give me the receipt then. I want to return it.
Secret Santa is a gift exchange tradition where people anonymously exchange gifts. It was started by a philanthropist named Larry Dean Stewart and has since evolved into a popular holiday custom celebrated in workplaces, clubs, and online platforms. The core concept remains the same, but modern variations include budget limits, revealing oneself during the gift exchange, and smaller gifts leading up to a main gift. Secret Santa's evolution over time has turned it into a beloved tradition that unites people in a spirit of generosity and merriment.
You know how this part goes if you've been a willing or unwilling Secret Santa. You do your best to get something the person will like. But with a limited working knowledge of what those things might be, you fall into tropes. And suppose you've ever been on the receiving end of Secret Santa. In that case, you know what it's like to have someone hand you a package with your name on it, only to open it and find yourself reduced to a hallmark trope. A pair of slippers. A razor. A mug. It's not necessarily offensive. But not particularly thoughtful, either.
I started working on this article in December last year, so this is why it has some winter remarks. Funny enough, outside still feels like winter, even though it is March.
On another note, you will read some rows about feedback, managers, and untrained management. I wanted to emphasize that I am part of that cohort. I made and still make these mistakes, but to improve, I’m starting with the first step: diagnosis. I’ve created and received crappy feedback, so let’s see if we can do something with it.
Not all feedback is a gift.
That sad and not particularly thoughtful gift with your name on it? Many people experience performance reviews that way. What do you do if your manager hands you lousy feedback in your review? And, to be clear, lousy as in lousy. It is not lousy as it is in thoughtful, well-constructed, constructive feedback. Lousy, as in
I’d love to see you smile more.
Lousy, as in
You're not ready for that promotion, but keep doing what you're doing.
Lousy, as in
What is this gift that I am stuck here holding, and does the person who handed it to me expect me to say thank you?
But there is this adage of “Feedback Is A Gift.” You are expected to greet this crappy feedback with curiosity and gratitude. All feedback is an opportunity to learn and improve. And if the person responsible for your growth and development is trying to tell you something about how it's going, your job is to show up open and receptive. This assumes many things regarding the person giving the feedback. Like no malicious intent, no unsolicited feedback, and qualified sources, to name a few, although many more exist.
What if the total preparation your manager did before your review was to speed-read “Thanks for the Feedback” and “Radical Candor”? Well, it’s very easy just to put lipstick on a pig. This is the core problem with a lot of business wisdom that sounds good on paper. Specifically, it sounds good on 250 pages of paper sold at an airport bookstore. Their framing presents a proper thing but assumes a level of competence that most managers don't have. Also, It’s not the problem of the tool that its user doesn’t read the manual.
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
A critical difference between a secret-santa gift and feedback is that only the secret-santa gift is guaranteed non-toxic. We have whole regulatory and inspection regimes to ensure your Kinder Surprise is poison-free, but most workplaces have no equivalent. Imagine an ISO standard for feedback, a full-fledged compliance framework to validate that you are not producing lousy feedback. You might say that frameworks already exist, but why is there such an enormous amount of lousy feedback given at least yearly?
Let’s discuss how to analyze the feedback you receive and extract its juice. However, it’s essential to determine whether it is worth considering since there is a lot of negative feedback. Such feedback is often biased, discriminatory, and based on unfair assumptions about who deserves specific opportunities. Even worse, this shittiest-of-all feedback is frequently delivered as though it's a favor to you.
I shouldn't say this, but…
Your work is excellent, but you speak too much.
It would be best if you would say jokes sometimes.
Have you ever heard the term RBF?
To hear the sound, we need to remove all the noise. Managers should give you two kinds of feedback about your work. The first kind is about the expectations of the role and your growth within the organization. The second type is feedback about the organization's values and how they're reflected in your work. Being in type 1 or 2 doesn’t guarantee the feedback will be good — It may still be poor quality. However, input outside those categories isn’t helpful; usually, you can’t create value from it (even though you consume energy trying to understand it).
Sometimes, you may receive feedback regarding your job, role expectations, and performance. Although this feedback may be biased in many ways, it can be helpful if handled correctly. If you sense that valuable, honest feedback is hidden within the criticism, you can take steps to address it and use it to improve your performance.
So, let’s reframe: Feedback can contain a gift
Every leader I’ve interacted with knowns SBI. Situation, Behaviour, and Impact is a mnemonic framework for structuring feedback that someone can use. It's not the only framework out there, but it is essential to have a system for organizing thoughts around feedback. And it stops you from giving rambling and nonspecific feedback.
Common frameworks for giving feedback include the SBI model (Situation, Behavior, Impact), SAID model (Strengths, Action, Impact, Development), I like / I wish / What if model, CRC model (Commend, Recommend, Commend), SKS model (Stop, Keep, Start), Radical Candor Model, and the Continue / Consider model used by General Electric (GE). There is a sandwich somewhere there also.
When you sense that unhelpful feedback is rooted in something real, you can do your manager's work for them. You can reverse-engineer how the feedback should have been delivered. Is it fair that you should have to do this? Of course not. But it's pretty straightforward if you want the information hidden within their feedback. So, let’s focus on making the most of it now, using SBI as an example.
I’ve found that it is straightforward to focus only on Behaviour. And I’ve received unhelpful feedback that sounded like I was a completely different individual.
You're too quiet.
You're too much.
You asked the client about their recent incident, but you should have asked them about their six-month forecast.
It would be best if you were more like Matilda.
When talking to anybody, they often have no idea where this feedback comes from. Context makes a difference between knowing an opinion versus understanding a fact. If you're in that spot, start by nailing down the Situation. You want to get specific about where your manager formed this impression so you can recognize what was going on for you. Feedback is a tool to help you grow, and it can only work if both parties use it correctly. So ask those questions, don’t be afraid, don’t be shy. You are not defensive; you want to understand better.
Over the last few weeks, when has this been the most obvious?
When is the most recent time you noticed this?
Is there a pattern to where you see this happen?
A genuine curiosity is driving your questioning. Before deciding whether to take the feedback, you must understand what drives it. Do this so that there is no space later on in your mind to think of alternatives or possible meanings to the feedback.
With some specific situations in hand, it's time to discuss Impact. Well-intentioned but incompetent managers regularly know what Impact is but need help spelling it out. Sometimes, they feel it’s obvious, and sometimes, they haven't given it much intentional thought. But either way, you need to know.
What's the critical difference between my approach and Gabriel’s, and why is that important?
Please help me understand why asking about the incident is a problem or why the forecast leads to a better outcome.
What's the core impact you see when I don't speak up in the team meeting?
Many managers who lack training tend to avoid giving feedback because they expect adverse reactions, such as resistance or yelling. The atmosphere during performance conversations can be tense, like a spring-loaded gate ready to slam shut when there is pushback. However, the mood can change drastically if you take the feedback positively and ask sincere follow-up questions to understand it better. The conversation can shift from being robotic and procedural to a collaborative effort to improve. Although this may not always be the case, it is still worth a try.
In a perfect world, you wouldn't have to go through this. Work shouldn't be a puzzle where you try to extract feedback from your manager. You shouldn't be responsible for the emotions of someone with more authority in the company than you have. But this exercise can improve your life; everything compounds in time.
In the meantime, we live in a world of under-equipped management, vague feedback reviews, and secret Santas. If the unwanted gift on your desk this morning is saltwater tropical fish, I can’t help you. If it's toxic, send it straight to the trash before it stains something. But if that gift is some poorly structured feedback with something useful tucked inside, that might be recoverable.
Also, note that this exercise works for feedback outside work, so if you want to polish this technique, try it with your close friends first. Expect correctly-formed feedback, and give it to others as well.
