Most people love to receive gifts. So when someone gives us the gift of honesty, why do we rebel? When we are offered feedback, why do we get defensive or angry? Are our egos so delicate?

In fact we are conditioned to do this, to defend ourselves from attackers, to be right. We also generally believe we are good people, and so if someone got hurt we want to believe that it wasn’t our fault. Yet the way we treat feedback is almost perfectly designed to increase the likelihood that we will repeat our mistakes.

We need new guidelines for how to receive feedback. Our current methods certainly aren’t working.

So here is my 3 step process for receiving feedback.

1. Action. Find out what specifically you did. What were the actions you took?

2. Impact. Find out how your actions affected others feelings, perceptions, behaviors, results.

3. Decision. Decide on a new behavior or action you can take in the future that will result in a better impact.

It’s your feedback AID.

Who was right doesn’t matter. Who made mistakes doesn’t matter. You took an action that created a result that was different from what you and/or the other person wanted. So you identified a new behavior to create a more desirable outcome in the future.