“It’s a great sign of respect to me if someone feels I’m strong enough and capable enough and objective enough to tell me when I’ve done or said something stupid. It’s only those who regard me as delicate, sensitive, weak or fragile who will not dare to disagree with me.”

—Abraham Maslow

In essence, Maslow tells us that honest criticism is the highest form of praise. He says that you’re an adult; you can handle the truth and you have the capacity to grow.

Henry David Thoreau observed, “People don’t give you their most effective criticism until you provoke them. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.” Because most people avoid conflict and want to be liked, they tend to tell you the unvarnished truth only when they are frustrated or downright angry. As a consequence, the truth will not always come across tactfully. Remember, the next time you get candid feedback from someone who appears angry or frustrated, be grateful for those emotions. Without them, the giver may never have found the courage to level with you.

We recently conducted a significant study in which we correlated people’s pay with their attitudes toward feedback. We found that those who were open to criticism in any form—who didn’t put preconditions on it, who didn’t say people had to be constructive or polite—earned significantly more money than those who said they were open to criticism as long as it was “constructive.”

One reason for this correlation is that people who are open to the gift of criticism, no matter how it’s wrapped, get more unfiltered information. With better information, they make better decisions. Better decisions lead to better work results and more satisfied customers. And in organizations that pay for performance, having more satisfied customers leads to higher pay.

The problem with making openness to criticism conditional upon it being “constructive” is that only the receiver gets to define what “constructive” means. Despite the best of intentions, tact and skill on the part of the feedback giver, if the receiver doesn’t like what they hear, they simply label the feedback “unconstructive.” The recipient then claims to have a legitimate reason to dismiss it.

What a weak excuse. In our experience, the person who says he is open to criticism as long as it’s constructive really doesn’t want any criticism at all.

On January 22, 1879, the British army suffered its greatest defeat ever at the hands of an army equipped with primitive weapons. A British battalion, furnished with artillery and modern Martini-Henry rifles, was effectively wiped out by a Zulu force armed only with short stabbing spears, clubs and cowhide shields. The engagement came to be known as the Battle of Isandlwana.

On the morning of the 20th, two days before that fateful battle, the British arrived at Isandlwana and set up a forward camp. The British commander, Lord Chelmsford, decided that there was no need to entrench his forces or even take the rudimentary defensive step of circling the wagons.

Early on the 22nd the British dispatched a scouting party who stumbled on a Zulu force of about 20,000 sitting in total silence. The Zulus went immediately on the offensive. An officer arriving from another battalion gave the following account of the last stage of the battle from his safe vantage point atop a nearby hill:

“In a few seconds we distinctly saw the guns [artillery pieces] fired again, one after the other, sharp. This was done several times—a pause, and then a flash-flash! The sun was shining on the camp at the time, and then the camp looked dark, just as if a shadow was passing over it. The guns did not fire after that, and in a few minutes all the [British] tents had disappeared.” (F.E. Colenso, History of the Zulu War and its Origin, London, 1880.)

As the sun set that day, only 50 British soldiers out of 1,500 escaped with their lives.

How did an army equipped with artillery and rifles capable of firing ten rounds a minute lose to an army equipped with clubs and stabbing spears? Even if the British were appalling marksmen—which they were not—and their bullets found their targets only one time in ten, they had the firepower necessary to inflict over 1,000 casualties a minute.

On the surface, this British disaster was the result of two poor decisions. First, the British failed to establish an adequate initial defense. Second, as was typical for the British at the time, they chose to fight in a linear formation—a disastrous decision which made it easier for the Zulu warriors to utilize their speed and numerical superiority to outflank and overwhelm the British. (Ian Knight, Isandlwana 1879: The Great Zulu Victory, Osprey, 2002.)

The more fundamental reason, however, was the failure of the British officers to seek and heed the input of their local scouts. The scouts, British subjects of European descent, had lived on the South African frontier for most—or all—of their lives. They understood the Zulu military strategies and their strengths. They knew the battle tactics that earlier settlers had used to defeat Zulu armies that sometimes outnumbered them more than twenty to one. The British officers, on the other hand, grossly underestimated the discipline, motivation, speed, stealth and superb leadership of the Zulu army.

Unfortunately for the British, they saw the colonial scouts as ill-mannered, poorly-educated drunks. A sense of superiority rendered the British officers incapable of accepting feedback from these less refined, less educated subordinates.

It’s unlikely that you will ever have to risk your life in war. Nevertheless, the lessons of Isandlwana remain indispensable to your career and your business. How often, in organizations across the globe, do individuals and groups make disastrous mistakes because their egos prevent them from accepting feedback from those who are different from them, or from those who occupy positions of lower status or power? It is easy to learn from the criticism of people we hold in high esteem and from those who are skilled communicators. What takes real skill and wisdom is to profit from the counsel of those we don’t admire, the rough and tumble “scouts” in our own lives. As noted by Publilius Syrus, “Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.”

What Matters More, Perception or Reality?

A participant in one of our feedback workshops shared this story:

“I’m by nature very introverted, which has created some difficulties for me in my career. The most serious problem surfaced a year or so after I was promoted to management. As with many managers at technical companies, I was promoted not because of my superior interpersonal or leadership skills, but because I had the best technical skills.

“After becoming a manager, I continued to do what I did best, which was to solve technical problems. And I avoided things that made me feel uncomfortable, which included interacting with people on an informal and personal basis. One day I received feedback from some direct reports. They essentially said, ‘You’re unapproachable and elitist. You think you’re better than us.’

“I couldn’t believe it. I thought they must be describing someone else. If anything, I’ve often felt inferior to others, particularly those who seemed so comfortable in social settings. Instead of seeing my behavior for what it was—evidence of my shy and introverted nature—they interpreted it as evidence that I thought I was better than them. Because the feedback was based on misperceptions, I thought it wasn’t valid and was therefore inclined to dismiss it. But eventually I came to see that although their view of me was based on a misperception, it was that view that was undermining our relationship and their willingness to give me their best efforts. The gift to me was discovering that people didn’t react to me based on who I was—shy and introverted— but based on their perception of who I was—aloof and elitist.

“I have often heard the phrase, ‘Perception is reality,’ but not until this happened did I understand what that really meant. Their perceptions of me were creating the reality of an ineffective team. If I wanted a different reality, one that involved an effective and collaborative team, I would have to change those perceptions. That would require me to get out of my comfort zone, spend more time interacting with team members, and sometimes talking about personal interests. I will never be a charismatic leader, but because of that feedback I’m a much more effective manager.”

What we can learn from this case is that subjective perceptions, even when they’re inaccurate, are more powerful in shaping behavior than so-called objective facts. In order to save his career, this leader had to discard the erroneous notion that facts trump perceptions and realize that perception is reality.

We are excited to launch our “Personal Feedback Competition”! You have now read the most effective feedback experiences of the authors, Nigel and Michael-John, found on our blog. We would now like to hear your most memorable (powerful, influential, embarrassing, etc.) experiences with feedback.

Post your experiences on our Facebook fan page wall and in two weeks, on August 9th at 12:00pm, the competition will end and the authors will pick their top three choices for the best feedback received. The winners will received a signed copy of our upcoming release of “Where’s the Gift?”. We look forward to hearing from you.

Third Book Blog: In anticipation for our nearing book launch, we find it valuable (and entertaining) to read about the authors personal experience with feedback.

I hate feedback.

At least, that’s how I used to feel. Who wants to go through the pain and hard work of receiving criticism as a gift? Even worse, what kind of lunatic would purposely seek out such painful experiences in order to have more of them?

My point of view has, thankfully, changed. The most helpful feedback I’ve ever received goes back to my earliest memory. It happened in kindergarten, a rather unusual one in which teachers actually graded us and gave us report cards. What I could possibly be graded on at that young age I don’t know, but I remember bringing home report cards for my parents to sign, full of gold stars and smiley-faces.

One day I brought home a report card that was like any other, with one small exception: the teacher had written a note at the bottom. My mom read me that note. It said, “Michael-John is oversensitive.” How did I react to that? Very oversensitively! I cried, ran to my room, slammed my door and didn’t come out for a long, long time. I remember the day that happened literally better than I remember what I had for dinner last night, and that is a good thing. As an adult, my memory of this experience helps me keep my oversensitivity in check (which has had no small impact on my overall ability to receive criticism).

Over the past decade our company, Targeted Learning, has asked thousands of people to describe the most helpful criticism they’ve ever received. Of those, over 75% responded that their initial reaction to that feedback was negative. They reported a range of painful feelings including disappointment, annoyance, sadness, shock, anger and even betrayal.

Because most people in our study reported a negative initial reaction to being given candid feedback, we may wonder how so many of them came to see that criticism as the most helpful of their entire lives. It appears that the gift in feedback is often found not in spite of the pain, but precisely because of it. Paradoxically, it is often the pain in criticism that causes us to reflect on the message long enough to discover the gift in it. The people who should be concerned are not those who feel pain when criticized; rather, it is those who don’t feel much at all.

No one is a stranger to the importance of feedback, myself included. The most helpful feedback I ever received was twenty-five years ago, soon after I left South Africa to attend graduate school in the USA. I brought with me a strong competitive spirit and a determination to graduate in the top ten percent of my class. Consequently, I didn’t hesitate to fully engage in class discussions and debates.

My favorite first-semester class focused on interpersonal skills. One afternoon, during a discussion on giving feedback, a fellow student turned to me and declared, in front of the entire class, “The problem with you is that you love the sound of your own voice.”

Ouch! The fact that it was delivered for all to hear compounded my embarrassment. To be honest, I was tempted to punch him—but it was an interpersonal skills class, so I bit my tongue instead.

Although I consciously avoided appearing defensive, I mounted a valiant defense in my head. He’s wrong, I remember telling myself. He just wants to embarrass me in front of my peers. I went home that night and told my wife about the incident. I expected understanding. I expected her to tell me he was wrong, that I was just doing my part in the course and that other students should step up if they didn’t like it. I expected her to reinflate my ego.

I was mistaken.

When I told her what my classmate had said, her only comment was, “And that surprised you?”

Try as I might to dismiss what had happened, the sting of the original feedback, as well as my wife’s comment, wouldn’t let me forget. Eventually, I had to consider, What if there are other classmates who see me the same way?

Soon after, my anger cooled and I began to try a different approach in class discussions. I stopped being the first one to voice an opinion; I started listening more. Because of my competitive nature, I found it something of a challenge, but the results spurred me on. The quieter students began participating more in class and I discovered that they often made the most insightful comments. I’d like to think they were pleased with the change I had made. The truth is, I was the primary beneficiary; I learned more when I listened more. I changed a little and gained a lot.

The criticism I got twenty-five years ago helped me enormously. It taught me that those who listen more, talk less and let others voice their opinions before voicing their own get a lot more creativity, ownership and productivity from those around them. And because the criticism I received was delivered so poorly, it helped me understand that all feedback has the power to help us reach our goals—regardless of how it’s delivered.