Receiving Feedback: Value

Episode Transcript

The Receiving Feedback Value card states, “Try to find useful feedback even if it’s packaged poorly by the giver. But if it’s delivered abusively, that isn’t feedback, do not tolerate it.” And the card invites you to practice safety and excavation, which you can do by filtering for safety first. If the delivery is clumsy but not harmful, think, “Is there something useful buried under this noise?”

Let’s spend some time here, because this card pushes back on some common advice. So too often, feedback receivers are told to smile and say thank you, that feedback is a gift, that the proper response to any critique is gratitude. And in my experience, most of that is junk. Much of it comes from a hierarchical perspective, written by senior leaders or those who want to appease them, and whether they realize it or not, want feedback receivers to simply comply and listen.

And here’s the real damage that framing can do. It can mean receivers feel expected to tolerate and even respond with gratitude to harmful and toxic communication. Let’s call that what it is. That is not feedback. Communication delivered abusively, designed to demean, to intimidate, to diminish, does not become feedback just because it happens in a one-on-one or gets labeled constructive. You do not need to excavate it for value. You do not need to thank anyone for it. The first filter always is safety. That’s why it comes first in this card’s practice.

But once safety is established, there’s a second reality worth honoring. Human communication’s hard. As you may have noticed, there are times when someone offers you genuinely great feedback, but they stumble around it, or it arrives inside a jumbled mess of other comments, or the words they choose don’t quite express what they mean. The insight might be real, but the wrapping paper is just terrible.

Great feedback receivers are able to parse through the wrapping paper to get to anything worthwhile inside, and they do it with a few learnable moves. They ask clarifying questions. They mirror back what the person said using different words to check for alignment. “So what I’m hearing is…” And they reflect, sometimes after the conversation, on what the giver may have been trying to say beneath the fumbled delivery. The mechanism here is generosity of interpretation, but only after that safety filter has been passed. You’re not excusing poor delivery. You’re refusing to let the poor delivery cost you a useful insight.

That’s card 06 of the Receiving Feedback suit. The next time feedback arrives in rough packaging, run the two filters in order. Is it safe? If not, you owe it nothing. If it is, is there something useful buried under the noise? You may be surprised how often the answer is yes.