The Joy of Getting Feedback | Joe Hirsch | TEDxTarrytown

We all have fears. Mine was getting feedback. That kind of fear may not show up on some top 10 list, but for me, the fear was raw and it was real.

I was ashamed of my shortcomings. I didn't want to discover that the way I saw myself wasn't quite the way others saw me. Getting feedback meant coming to terms with myself on someone else's terms, and that wasn't something I could easily come to accept.

So how did I deal with that fear? Mainly, I didn't. For a long time, I did everything I could to avoid it. I built walls and closed doors. I pulled back. Have you ever done that?

Well, over time, that distance, that fear, it became a liability. And then one day, seemingly without warning, I was blindsided by it. After doing a job I loved for more than 10 years, things started to slip.

I had become blind to the way others saw me, and every day had to start living with those costs. It strained my relationships, it hurt my standing within my organization. It defined the way others looked at me. People misread my fear as arrogance. They thought I was too proud or too good to want to listen to what they have to say or even care.

So they talked about me, but never to me. They made assumptions and judgments about my character, my intentions. And all that did was push the distance between my reality and their perception even farther.

I suspect that there are some of you out there who are feeling that same fear. You feel it every time your boss or a co-worker takes you aside and asks, 'Can I give you some feedback?' And meanwhile, deep down, all you're thinking to yourself is, 'Well, as a matter of fact, no, you can't.' Because even if we don't object to getting feedback, we probably dread the way it makes us feel.

Do you remember your first feedback encounter? Did your heart start to beat a little faster? Did your face become flushed? Did your throat go dry? Did you suddenly not feel like yourself? Like there wasn't any more room to hide behind the delusions and deceptions we all too often create. Did you for the very first time start to feel exposed? Because after all, isn't that what feedback is all about? An act of uncovering. What happens when those uncomfortable truths are laid bare? What happens when we're forced to confront a version of ourselves we don't know very well, and frankly, don't like very much?

But as I came to understand, getting feedback only makes us smaller when it looks back on a past we can't change, instead of out towards a future that we can. Because that future is a place of promise and potential, of change and opportunity. And the closer we are drawn to that future, the sooner we come to realize that feedback doesn't have to be a source of fear. It can make room and give rise to a new emotion, to joy.

The joy of knowing we can do something different or become someone different. The joy that comes from recognizing that feedback doesn't have to hold us back. With just a small change, it can push us forward. Feed forward. That may sound like a play on words, but when it comes to our potential, feed forward is a change in our whole outlook.

Think about it. Most of the time, it's the people giving us feedback who have the power and the perspective, right? Their view, their version of events. Let's call that kind of feedback window gazing. Picture it. When you have two people standing beside a window, both gazing out at the same landscape, they could see completely different things. When people give us feedback like a window gazer, there is usually just one view that matters, and it's theirs, the view of the giver, what the gazer sees and perceives.

But reimagined as feed forward, we get this whole other perspective that we'll call mirror holding. When you're holding a mirror, there's still just one view, but it belongs to someone else, to that person across from you, staring back into that mirror. When we give feedback like a mirror holder, it changes our whole view. Instead of telling others what we see, our job is to help them look into that mirror and see it for themselves. Can you imagine the difference of giving feedback like that, like a window gazer or a mirror holder? It could be the difference between having power or a partner. The difference between telling someone what's broken or helping them figure out what needs fixing. It could be the difference between fear and joy.

As you consider those differences, ask yourselves, when I give feedback to another person, what's my goal? Is it to force a change or provoke an insight? Because that is the challenge and that is the choice, and it is a choice that we get to make every single day. It was a choice that I had to make recently, and it changed me profoundly. Remember that experience I was having at work? Well, one day, without warning, I was called into a meeting with some senior members of my organization, and they didn't look too happy. They told me they had concerns about my conduct, the distancing, the visible angst. And they told me that things needed to change, that I had to stop running from feedback and start embracing hard truths.

I asked friends and colleagues for their suggestions and advice, but it just ended up being one prolonged exercise in window gazing. When I needed a lift, all I got was a lecture. But there was one person, a true friend, who did just the opposite. Instead of telling me what he thought I needed to do, he asked me a question that only I could answer. Six words: Who do you want to be? He held that mirror. I made that choice, and that made all the difference.

But to make that fearless leap from feedback to feed forward, to help others see themselves in a whole new way, there is work to be done both by the giver and the receiver. What can you do if you're giving feedback? Get comfortable letting go. Let go of your window gazing and start doing more mirror holding, because when you do that, you just might come to realize that letting go isn't about what you give up, but what you give. And when we give someone a better view of themselves by asking questions and uncovering the truths that they already hold, our feedback becomes their fuel for growth. And if you're getting feedback, get comfortable letting others in. Find those mirror holders in your life, at work, at school, in your communities or places of worship, and ask them to help you improve your view, because we can only see so far all by ourselves.

Looking back now, I think it was that realization that feedback could be a partnership, not a trial, that ultimately awakened my joy. It helped me see myself not just for who I was, but who I was becoming. Just as my relationship with feedback evolved, so can yours. Making that shift from feedback to feed forward pushes us to see where we're headed, not just where we've been. And somewhere along that journey, we just might come to realize that joy isn't something that we find. It's something we create. Thank you.