Abstract
Developing skills in soliciting, receiving, and responding effectively to critical or negative performance feedback is at least as important as delivering feedback well. Organizational Behavior courses, however, focus almost exclusively on teaching students how to deliver feedback. The purpose of this scenario-based classroom exercise is to “turn the table,” that is, focus on the recipient in a feedback conversation and his or her processing of information about performance. Its target audience is instructors teaching undergraduate students in Organizational Behavior, Leadership, or Management Principles courses. The learning objectives emphasize understanding the barriers that get in the way of effectively responding to performance feedback, and learning techniques for overcoming them.
Receiving and responding effectively to critical or negative performance feedback are critical skills for success in the workplace, yet developing these skills is underemphasized in management education. Instead, Organizational Behavior (OB) courses primarily focus on how managers should deliver feedback to employees, such as being descriptive, not being evaluative, and discussing specific behaviors that can be changed rather than personal attributes (Whetten & Cameron, 2016). The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) literature also reflects this emphasis on feedback delivery over receipt (e.g., Harms & Roebuck, 2010; Michaelsen & Watson, 1987; Miller, 2018; an exception is the more general topic of effective listening behavior, which does appear occasionally in the SoTL literature, e.g., Schmidt, 2018; Spataro & Bloch, 2018). Clearly, devoting attention to delivering feedback is appropriate—managers often express dread about conducting performance appraisals, and many Human Resources professionals identify poor handling of this task as a significant performance management challenge (Heen & Stone, 2014). Especially in their early-career years, however, employees are more likely to be feedback recipients than feedback givers. Their ability to respond positively and constructively to performance improvement suggestions, rather than reacting defensively or otherwise failing to successfully process the feedback, may be crucial to their professional development and advancement. This article begins to address this gap in management education by presenting a scenario-based classroom exercise that helps students learn strategies for receiving and responding effectively to critical or negative performance feedback.
Background Literature
While the topic of developing skills in receiving feedback has not garnered much attention in the SoTL literature to date, research in the Communications field offers some practical guidance. Specifically, Stone and Heen’s (2014) book, Thanks for the Feedback, addresses the challenges feedback receivers face in processing and responding to information about their behavior and performance, and how to overcome them. Their book provides the foundational framework for the design of this article’s classroom exercise, as they cover three main points relevant to developing skills in this area. First, there are different types of feedback, primarily based on its purpose or objective. Second, sometimes “wires get crossed” between the giver and receiver, that is, what the giver intends to communicate may not be what the receiver hears or needs. Third, feedback recipients often react to feedback in ways that prevent effectively responding to it.
Regarding feedback types, a particular feedback delivery session can have one or more of the following purposes or objectives: appreciation, evaluation, or coaching. In an employment setting, appreciative feedback is encouraging and conveys thanks for an employee’s efforts, evaluative feedback provides information on where the employee stands relative to others and to expectations, and coaching gives guidance on where and how to improve in one or more performance areas. These three purposes are simple to understand and easily distinguishable from one another in the abstract. In actual application, however, misunderstandings sometimes occur in performance feedback sessions when “wires get crossed” concerning the appreciation, evaluation, and coaching components. For example, a manager may think he or she is communicating helpful feedback with the sincere desire of assisting the employee in developing certain skills or abilities (coaching); the employee, meanwhile, may “hear” this feedback as a negative commentary on his or her current performance (evaluation). As another example, if a manager delivers a positive evaluation followed by some suggestions for performance improvement, the recipient may focus primarily on the positive comments and fail to hear or give appropriate weight to the manager’s coaching message (Stone & Heen, 2014).
Crossed wires can take other forms, as well, such as when the giver does not recognize the recipient’s need for a specific type of feedback. For instance, an employee may want or need to hear that her past efforts have been noticed and valued (appreciation), but the manager might focus exclusively on improvement suggestions (coaching). The converse can also occur: A manager may be consistently encouraging, taking care to make sure the employee knows how much her contributions are valued (appreciation). The employee, meanwhile, is desperate to know where she stands relative to others and what her realistic chances for promotion are (evaluation), and what she needs to work on to be ready for the next step (coaching) (Stone & Heen, 2014).
Further complicating the successful communication of clear performance feedback are some tendencies of feedback receivers. While a few employees may relish critical or negative performance feedback as a tool for honing their skills (Shellenbarger, 2018), most experience some degree of dread at the prospect (Cleveland et al., 2007). This discomfort can stimulate a gamut of reactions that are unproductive and can block the thoughtful processing of the feedback. At one extreme, employees may react defensively, interpreting the critique as a personal attack (Grenny, 2015; Weeks, 2001) and responding with denials or excuses (Singh, 2017). Other individuals may take the criticism to heart and be profoundly discouraged by the feedback, perhaps resulting from a fixed mind-set that perceives their abilities as largely unchangeable, rather than evolving and capable of growth (Dweck, 2006; Stone & Heen, 2014).
Three “triggers” help explain reflexive reactions like these; when tripped, they prevent employees from effectively listening and responding to feedback. The first, a “truth trigger,” deals with the content of the feedback itself—the recipient may hastily label the feedback as untrue or unfair, dismissing it as not worth considering further. The second, a “relationship trigger,” refers to the characteristics or perceived motives of the feedback giver. Feedback received from someone who, for example, is perceived as lacking credibility, or with whom the recipient has had a contentious relationship, can generate negative emotions that get in the way of thoughtful consideration of the comments. The third type, an “identity trigger,” is activated when feedback strikes close to home and is perceived as threatening one’s self-concept, for instance, employees’ beliefs about their abilities or “who they are.” This threat to self-identity can cause an employee to feel overwhelmed and off-balance, again preventing an effective, thoughtful response (Stone & Heen, 2014).
In sum, then, manager–employee discussions concerning performance evaluation are fraught with potential difficulties that can block effective communication. As noted earlier, attention in management education has been weighted heavily toward the manager’s role in this situation, that is, how to effectively deliver performance feedback to employees. For the feedback conversation to be successful in promoting performance improvement, however, the employee’s role in listening and responding effectively will be at least as important. Thus, the classroom exercise described here is geared toward helping students develop their skills in absorbing and effectively processing critical or negative feedback they receive, in a professional workplace setting or elsewhere. Indeed, while the discussion above has focused on employees receiving feedback from managers, the principles students will be exposed to through this exercise apply in other situations where they may be the recipients of feedback, for example, from peers, instructors, friends, coaches, and others. The learning objectives for the exercise are presented below, followed by the steps for conducting the exercise.
Learning Objectives
Through completion of the “Turning the Table” exercise, students will learn the following:
Explain the three primary purposes of performance feedback
Apply this knowledge to identify potential “crossed wires” between feedback givers and receivers
Analyze scenarios to identify barriers (“triggers”) that impede recipients’ effective listening and response to feedback
Develop effective recipient responses to feedback to promote constructive conversations with feedback givers
Conducting the Exercise
This scenario-based exercise was developed as part of the “Communication” module in an undergraduate Introduction to OB course and has been conducted successfully four times. Instructors also may find it appropriate for a Principles of Management, Leadership, or Business Communications course. The step-by-step instructions below are written assuming a 75-minute class period, with an allowance of 5 minutes at the start for announcements or other administrative matters.
Step-by-Step Instructions (75-Minute Class Session)
Advance preparation: Assign as before-class reading a brief Harvard Business Review article (Heen & Stone, 2014) that explains the three “triggers” that can block the effective receipt of feedback and provides several tips and techniques for improving as a feedback recipient.
20 minutes: At the start of the class session, present a brief lecture on the three primary purposes of performance feedback (i.e., appreciation, evaluation, and coaching), and the potential for misunderstandings when “wires get crossed” between feedback givers and recipients. Referring to the reading assignment, ask students for their understanding of the “triggers” concept and discuss with them the ways these triggers can present roadblocks in a feedback conversation (see the Background Literature section and the Heen & Stone, 2014, article for details). Instructors can prompt students to personalize this material by asking them to share some of their own experiences with receiving feedback and examples of times they found it difficult to hear it or respond constructively. As the final step here, distribute and review “Guidelines for Receiving Feedback” (Appendix A). Several of these tips will be familiar to students from the reading assignment. These guidelines are presented in the second person to encourage students to adopt the perspective of feedback recipients. The examples in Appendix A are based on suggestions made in the cited references, modified to fit the sales context.
25 minutes: After the introductory lecture, form small groups of four or five students each and distribute the “Performance Feedback Scenarios” handout (Appendix B). Ask them to read the first scenario and discuss it in their small groups and then repeat the process for the remaining scenarios, using the discussion questions shown in Appendix C. Display the questions on the screen or provide them as a handout.
25 minutes: Conclude the exercise with a whole-class discussion of each scenario and students’ answers to the questions. See Appendix D for suggested points to cover during the exercise debriefing.
Variations
Longer class sessions (e.g., 90-100 minutes) will allow instructors to include the optional role-play extension below. Alternatively, for shorter sessions of 50 minutes, instructors can easily modify these instructions by covering the lecture and related discussion (Step 2; allow 20 minutes) at the end of the first class session, and then trim the small group discussion stage (Step 3) in the second class session by 5 minutes or so. Note also that there is an optional reflection paper assignment for this exercise (see Appendix E). This reflection paper works well as a homework assignment following the in-class exercise.
Optional Extension: Role-Play
If time permits, a role-play extension of the exercise can be a valuable addition for students’ learning. Specifically, the small-group discussion step (Step 3 above) can be expanded to include a staged follow-up meeting between the feedback giver and recipient, as follows. After groups conclude their discussion of the provided questions for the first scenario, ask them to choose one student as feedback giver (Julie), while the other students take the role of feedback receiver (Jake). The student in the Julie role should provide Jake her performance evaluation as shown in the scenario, after which the Jakes can try out different ideas for how they might respond to Julie to obtain the kind of coaching feedback they desire. The small groups can then discuss the various responses students came up with and select their preferred one. Repeat the process of small-group discussion of the provided questions followed by role-play (rotating roles) for the remaining scenarios, as time allows. Conclude the exercise by having the small groups report out their preferred responses as part of the whole-class discussion of the scenarios (Step 4 above).
Conclusion
Giving performance feedback effectively is recognized as a core managerial communication competency, and as a result, it is a common topic in OB courses and the SoTL literature. However, responding effectively to performance feedback, rather than reacting defensively or otherwise failing to thoughtfully consider criticism, has garnered much less attention to date. The scenario-based “Turning the Table” classroom exercise in this article begins to address this coverage gap in management coursework. It is an engaging, easy-to-conduct exercise that helps students identify some barriers that prevent effectively listening to and processing feedback, as well as learn some techniques for overcoming them.
Supplemental Material
Guidelines_for_Receiving_Feedback_Appendix_A – Supplemental material for Turning the Table: Developing Students’ Skills in Receiving Feedback
Supplemental material, Guidelines_for_Receiving_Feedback_Appendix_A for Turning the Table: Developing Students’ Skills in Receiving Feedback by Laura Paglis Dwyer in Management Teaching Review
Supplemental Material
Performance_Feedback_Scenarios_Appendix_B – Supplemental material for Turning the Table: Developing Students’ Skills in Receiving Feedback
Supplemental material, Performance_Feedback_Scenarios_Appendix_B for Turning the Table: Developing Students’ Skills in Receiving Feedback by Laura Paglis Dwyer in Management Teaching Review
Footnotes
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
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