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Perpetual: Reads | Thanks for the Feedback

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands.

Thanks for the Feedback

Why Perpetual recommends it

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen’s Thanks for the Feedback flips the usual feedback conversation on its head: instead of focusing on how to give feedback well, it focuses on how to receive it well, arguing that the receiver has far more control over whether feedback lands than most people assume.

The authors identify three feedback triggers that derail people before they’ve even processed what’s being said: truth triggers, feeling the feedback is wrong; relationship triggers, reacting to who’s giving it; and identity triggers, feeling the feedback threatens who you are.

The book is especially useful for separating coaching, evaluation and appreciation, three types of feedback that get tangled together constantly, leading to confusion about whether someone wanted to be helped, judged or simply recognised.

We recommend this book because most feedback training focuses entirely on the giver; this book closes the other half of the loop, and teams that get good at receiving feedback tend to create cultures where more honest feedback gets offered in the first place.

  • How feedback is received shapes whether it’s useful far more than most people assume
  • Truth, relationship and identity triggers each derail feedback conversations differently
  • Coaching, evaluation and appreciation are distinct needs often confused as one thing
  • Skilled receivers of feedback create cultures where more honest feedback gets shared

Next time you receive feedback that stings, pause and name silently which trigger is firing, truth, relationship or identity, before responding.

We give this book four out of five stars.

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