It was 30 min past our scheduled appointment, and Fred was nowhere to be found. I had been cooling my heels in the lobby of the Fortune 500 firm where Fred was a vice president. It had been a week since I had met with him to deliver a coaching report based on feedback I had solicited from his colleagues.

That last meeting had not gone so well. The verbatims in the report were tough; many of them could be described as brutally honest. When he read through the report for the first time, Fred discounted a lot of what he was reading and said that his colleagues “didn’t get it.” If he had to be the tough guy to make sure things got done and done right, then so be it. I wrapped up the feedback meeting by asking him to reflect on it for a few days and we would meet again in a week to discuss next steps.

So, seven days later, I was back and Fred was missing in action. The security guard in the lobby called Fred’s number every 10 minutes and went to voice mail. I started emailing him from my phone trying to stir him up. No answer. After half an hour of pinging, I got up and headed for the parking lot. Just as I did, the elevator door opened and, lo and behold, there was Fred. “Oh, I’m sorry, he said, I didn’t realize we had a meeting today and just got the message that you were waiting on me.” My first thought was, “Wow, this is pretty passive aggressive,” but I put that aside, shook his hand, and rode upstairs with him.

When we got to his conference room, Fred was stone faced. I asked him if he had had a chance to think through the feedback a bit more. He said he had. So, I asked him what he thought, and he said something along the lines of “Not much, really.” I tried again with a different question and did not get anything I could build on or work with. This pattern went on for another 10 minutes, so I finally said, “Listen, I don’t want to waste your time. It’s clear you weren’t expecting to meet with me today. I think I should leave, let you get back to your day, and we can talk again in a couple of weeks.”

I was turning toward the door when I heard Fred softly ask, “Wait. Could you stay? There’s something I want to tell you.” Of course, I sat back down and asked what it was. “After you were here last time, I read through the report again and then took it down the hall to a friend’s office. He’s someone I used to work with years ago in a different company, and he’s known me for a long time. I asked him to read through the report and then asked him if I was really like that. He said, ‘You didn’t used to be, but you are now. What the hell happened to you?’”

Tears were welling in Fred’s eyes as he whispered to me, “I don’t want to be that guy.” I asked him if he had any plans for lunch. He said no, so we went to a nearby restaurant and spent the next 2 hours talking about his life. Fred did not realize it that day, but he had already taken some significant steps to making the most of feedback.

Research conducted by Richard Boyatzis demonstrates that receiving feedback can trigger the fight or flight response (Boyatzis 2011). Constructive (aka negative) feedback can prompt us to justify why we do what we do. That is a defensive mechanism designed to protect our self-esteem. The problem, of course, is that when you are the last person to recognize unproductive behaviors that everyone else is seeing and living with, you will eventually become ineffective.

Here, then, are some action steps to take when you are presented with colleague feedback:

Say thanks and keep going – Whenever you get feedback, the first thing you should do is say, “Thanks, I value your perspective and appreciate the time and effort you made in sharing it.” It is not easy to give feedback, so you want to encourage it by expressing your appreciation. On the happy occasions when the feedback is positive, you can add to your thanks by saying you will do your best to keep doing that and by asking if your colleague sees other ways that you can leverage that strength or positive attribute for the good of the organization.

Say thanks and learn more – When one or more colleagues care enough and have the courage to give you constructive feedback, saying thanks is even more important. You want to encourage open and honest communications as that is the foundation for getting better. Look for the patterns in the feedback you are getting. While all feedback can be useful, one data point does not a trend make. If a significant number of your colleagues are all saying more or less the same thing, you have a trend on your hand. It does not do any good to argue with the feedback. My client, Fred, took an important step in overcoming this when he shared his feedback with an old friend to learn more about how he was perceived. You may or may not agree with the trend, but it does not really matter whether you do or not. Their perception is your reality. As you act on the feedback, remember that you are not just going to work on changing your behavior – you are going to work on changing people’s perception of your behavior.

Choose a goal – This action step is about painting a positive picture of your future state, why it matters and the difference it will make for yourself and the organization. Getting that clear picture is a strong predictor of whether or not you will make the most of your feedback. Fred took an early and important step in this direction when he told me that he did not “want to be that guy.” He was, at that point, beginning to get back in touch with what had made him successful earlier in his career and how he would build on that to lead in a more positive way in his current role.

Ask for help – The best people to help you make the most of your feedback are the people who see you in action every day. Ask them for their help. Share the goal you have set and ask them for specific actions you could take on a regular basis to move toward that goal. From that list of ideas, pick a few that you want to commit to doing regularly and ask them to watch for you taking those steps and let you know when they notice. You will have a built-in team of coaches and accountability partners. You will also be role modeling a commitment to self-improvement that will be an inspiration to others.

Follow-up – One thing I have learned in two decades of executive coaching is that perception change almost always lags behavior change. Let us say, for example, that the feedback you have gotten suggests you could be a better listener. You have asked colleagues for listening suggestions and have been consistently asking more open-ended questions in problem solving sessions and not interrupting people with your ideas as they are sharing their own. After a few months, you are the champ at both of those. And, if there’s a multi-year story about you not doing those things, it is likely that a lot of people would not have noticed your changes yet. Keep going. Keep doing those things and keep asking your team for feedback in the moment about what they are noticing on your listening. You will eventually hear people saying “You’ve got it.” That is when you know you have changed their perception as well as your behavior.

As for Fred, our work together focused on behaviors that could help him feel and show that relationships mattered to him as much as results. At work, he adopted behaviors that showed he viewed people as ends in themselves and not just as means to an end. He did a lot of things you would expect – asking about personal interests and families, going to lunch with co-workers and seeking consensus on the best ways to get things done. One of the most important things he did had nothing to do with work. When he started thinking about the value of relationships, he reached back out to old friends from his high school days and re-established connections that enhanced his life personally and, therefore, professionally. Fred is retired now, but in the 10 years following our work together, he was promoted and took on a bigger scope. Today, he is pursuing another passion in his work as a personal fitness trainer.

Ready to create a better future? Begin by asking for feedback and then making the most of it.

References

1. Boyatzis, R. (2011, January/February). Neuroscience and Leadership: The Promise of Insights. The Ivey Business Journal [online].