I would argue that “being teachable" is even a more precious skill than being able to give great feedback: we can spend our whole life without giving any feedback, but for sure we can't avoid receiving it.
And given that feedback is one of the most valuable tool for your own growth, career-wise: you definitely want to optimize how you use it, and you want to encourage people to give you more.
As "Thanks for the Feedback" by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen teaches us, there are three types of feedback we could receive: Appreciation, Coaching, and Evaluation.
A first challenge arises when we are expecting one kind of feedback, but we receive a different one. Our own expectations set us up to not listening to what we hear, because we are not ready for it.
Other times, we receive low-quality feedback, so we react in a defensive way. However, feedback is always a gift: maybe a ugly gift, that we will throw away as soon as we are home, but still a gift.
What being “teachable” means
Most people think “being teachable” means “doing what you are told”. This is definitely not it.
Anyone giving feedback has only a partial view of the receiver’s work, so teachability is actually the ability to sustain the discomfort of the conversation, metabolize it quickly, and use the result of that metabolization to grow.
In the same fashion, having low teachability doesn’t mean rejecting feedback. I have seen many people that say they want feedback, they crave feedback, but that still have a very low teachability, because they make the feedback too expensive to give.
Feedback conversation is not a debate: there is no objective truth to find, nor logic to defend. During feedback conversation, we must be in “collection mode”: collecting information and data points on how our work is perceived.
The reaction to feedback
Giving feedback is a lot of work. It requires the giver to think about words, to prepare to a potentially uncomfortable conversation, and to spend time thinking about the impact of the talk before, during, and after.
If we react defensively to the feedback, we are punishing the giver. If we punish the giver, they will stop giving us any more data.
Often we get defensive because we wanted a pat on the back (Appreciation), or we were expecting some guidance (Coaching), but we got only raw data (Evaluation). The mismatch causes us pain, but we shouldn’t let it take over.
The goal should be to lower the “social cost” of telling us the truth: giving us feedback should be a positive, painless, effective effort.
Discerning the valuable parts
Not all feedback is high quality: some of it is driven by the other person’s insecurity, lack of context, bad mood, or simply having a hard time communicating the point they want to make.
But discussing the feedback doesn’t help: as mentioned above, it increases the social cost to get feedback. And word gets out: you don’t want to label yourself as the one that is unable to receive feedback.
Even when the feedback is bad, somewhere there is a 10% of truth. This might just be how actions appear (more on that below in “But … you misunderstood!”), and that in itself is already valuable.
So, the goal is to take the feedback, say “Thank you”, and find that 10% of value, discarding the rest.
Getting more out of feedback
What does all of this mean in practice? How can you get more out of the feedback you get?
I have personally seen the best results when, after having metabolized the feedback, and acted upon it, I went back to the giver explicitly telling them how I used their last piece of feedback.
This has a huge value for different reasons:
I show that I did my homework: I took the time to understand the feedback, integrating it in my daily activities, and seeing results;
The giver can comment on the results, explaining if I metabolized correctly what they shared, or if more adjustments are needed;
It transforms what it could have been a transactional comment in the beginning of deeper relation: with the excuse of discussing the feedback, you can start a relationship with someone that has already shown you the willingness to provide feedback. They could even become mentors!
The feedback budget
Mentors have a limited budget of energy: every minute they spend arguing with you about the feedback they shared, is a minute they are not spending in helping you grow.
If you waste their energy in senseless discussions because you cannot accept feedback, they will stop giving you any feedback at all. It won’t change a thing in their career trajectory, it will be a huge loss for you.
If you are difficult to work with, people will simply stop coming to you. They will route around you.
Being teachable means optimizing how you receive feedback for low friction. You want to make it effortless for people to dump information into your brain.
But… you misunderstood!
This is the most common fallacy I have seen in smart people: they love to say “Ah, but you have misunderstood what I have done!”. They have a reasoning on why they acted in a certain way, and they really want to explain that to you.
However, especially growing into more senior positions, perception is reality. If stakeholders perceive you as difficult, you are difficult. Arguing that you "aren't difficult, you're just precise" is ironic and proves the point.
When receiving feedback, your only job is to understand the perspective of the giver. You don’t necessarily have to agree, or act upon it. But you must understand it!
Explaining away why what you have done was the right thing to do, is wasted time. If I misunderstood you, go and fix how you communicate, don’t fix me.
Wait 24 hours
A very simple rule of thumb to help you be teachable is simply waiting at least 24 hours before discussing the feedback.
When you receive the feedback, you can ask clarifying questions if needed, but you can't argue, you can't say that it is wrong, you can't discuss it.
Simply say “Thank you, I will need some time to reflect on this.". Then, you really reflect on it. You try and find the valuable part of the message. You empathize with the giver. You spend some idle time not thinking about it.
Only after all that, and 24 hours, if you still feel the urge to discuss the feedback, you go back and discuss it.
Talk with a different mentor
Sometimes, also after having let some time pass by, we still find the feedback we received quite cryptic. We see there is value in it, but we are not really sure how to decode it, or how to get something actionable out of it.
If there is someone we trust, it is a great opportunity to share the feedback with them as well, and ask them if they have noticed the same pattern in us, or if they can rephrase the feedback in a way that is maybe more comprehensible for us.
Conclusion
Feedback is always a precious gift, and as that, we should treat it carefully: thanks for having received it, grateful, and making a good use of it.
This can make all the difference in the world in our career: having a tight, quick feedback loop allows to grow exponentially, and integrate in ourselves small changes that make us better.
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