110 Vague Feedback and What to Do With It
Vague feedback can send you spiraling or make you dismiss it completely. Liz Jolley shows how to separate the label from the facts, ask for specifics, and find the real learning.
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00:00:05
Welcome back, my friends. I'm Liz Jolley, and this is the Great Leader Great Mom Podcast, episode 110.
00:00:12
And we're talking about vague feedback.
00:00:15
Let's start with the fact that probably 99% of feedback that goes on at work is completely unhelpful. Today we're going to talk about why.
00:00:35
So what do I mean by vague feedback? Feedback that isn't specific at all, as in, it's not connected to any actual moment in time. There's no circumstance with it. And lately, I've had clients sharing their mid-year review feedback with me, and it is full of all the things we're talking about today.
00:00:35
Comments like, “Be more collaborative.” “Build stronger relationships.” “Influence without authority.” “Expand your influence.” “Take more ownership.” “Lead better through change.” “Sharpen your communication.”
00:01:05
Some of you are probably chuckling because this is exactly what's on your review sheet right now.
00:01:05
This type of feedback is so common. Leaders everywhere think we're being helpful when we give this kind of feedback. It's like, oh, it sounds so good.
00:01:05
And what's so amusing is that many large corporations set themselves up to receive vague feedback, even when they're encouraging specific examples. Most people aren't thinking about performance throughout the year. Then when mid-year arrives and they sit down and think, “How do I feel about this person?”
00:01:33
For me, years ago, I was asked by someone's boss, who lived like 2,000 miles away, to provide feedback on one of their employees. And thinking I was doing an amazing job, I pulled together leadership competencies and used phrases like, “Improve your executive presence,” or “Build stronger teams,” “Be more strategic.”
00:01:59
I submitted the feedback, and I felt incredibly proud of myself, like I did so good.
00:01:59
But the reality was, even though I thought it was super helpful and professional, I was very wrong.
00:02:06
That feedback was completely unhelpful without any examples, without any specifics. And I think that's actually the biggest problem with vague feedback.
00:02:16
Most feedback is not feedback at all. It's nothing that you can take and apply going forward. It is purely someone's interpretation of what happened. It's the story they made up about some situation.
00:02:32
And when we confuse someone else's interpretation with objective truth, that's where all the trouble starts.
00:02:32
So when someone gives you feedback, they're usually thinking about a specific moment in time, whether they realize it or not. They're sharing their conclusion they reached about that moment. That's their thought.
00:02:59
For example, imagine you're in a meeting, and someone later says, “You need to be more collaborative.”
00:02:59
What does that even actually mean? How can you improve on something that isn't defined? Other examples might be, “Build stronger relationships,” or “Influence without authority.”
00:03:11
But these aren't actual behaviors. They are labels. If I asked five leaders to define executive presence, I'd probably get five different answers. And that's why so many people leave performance reviews very confused.
00:03:27
We were given a competency, not an example.
00:03:27
Here's why this gets so tricky when we receive vague feedback. Most of us go in one of two directions. The first is that we catastrophize it.
00:03:52
I once had a leader tell me that I needed to be more inclusive. I remember being almost in tears. Inclusion was one of my core values. I cared deeply about creating environments where people could feel seen and heard.
00:03:52
So when she said that, I immediately made it mean something terrible about me, like I had done something very wrong.
00:04:14
Eventually, I processed her feedback enough to go back into her office and ask for more information. I said, “Tell me more. Do you have a specific example?”
00:04:14
And she really didn't have any examples. None at all. No specific moments. It seemed to be something that she was saying to a lot of her people right then.
00:04:39
But look at what happened. She offered a vague sentence. I turned it into this giant story about myself: “I'm not inclusive. I've done something wrong. I'm failing.”
00:04:39
And many of us do this all the time to ourselves.
00:04:39
We hear someone's interpretation and immediately create our own interpretation of what that meant. And that's where so much suffering comes from. We shut down, we get resentful, we withdraw, we stop contributing.
00:05:12
But there is a second response that people have to vague feedback. They reject it completely.
00:05:12
I once had a manager tell me that he had given an employee feedback that they weren't being a team player. And the manager was frustrated because the person hadn't applied any of the feedback, hadn't changed at all.
00:05:32
And all I could think of was, of course they haven't.
00:05:32
“You're not being a team player” is incredibly vague. Knowing this particular employee, they probably heard it and immediately thought, “Yeah, I'm a team player,” and dismissed the thing entirely.
00:05:32
Honestly, that's a reasonable response because the feedback wasn't specific enough to actually evaluate and do anything about.
00:05:36
Many of us think only negative feedback creates a problem.
00:06:08
But vague positive feedback also creates issues too. When someone says, “Great job.” “Keep it up.” “You're doing amazing.” Those comments feel great, but they don't tell you what created the success, so they aren't very useful for growth either.
00:06:08
You can end up believing you're performing at an exceptional level because of the story you created around that praise, only to be surprised later when your actual evaluation doesn't match your expectations.
00:06:18
So what do we do when we receive vague feedback?
00:06:18
First, before you rush into someone's office asking questions, create some space for you.
00:06:34
Separate out the sentence they shared from the meaning you've assigned to it, the thought you have about it. Remember, just because someone thinks it about you doesn't make it true.
00:06:34
They have a thought, which is a story and interpretation, and that doesn't automatically make it reality.
00:06:51
The moment you realize that, you get all your power back. And then you can go back and get curious with them, not defensive, not trying to prove them wrong. You may just go in and say, “Hey, can you give me a specific example?”
00:07:12
What's interesting is that sometimes people don't even have an actual example. They just have the conclusion, the judgment about you. But if they do have a specific moment, now you have something useful.
00:07:12
Now you can look at the actual circumstance. They had one interpretation, and you may have another, very likely. And often they're very different.
00:07:24
Then you get to decide what you want to learn from it. Because when someone gives you feedback, it doesn't mean you automatically have to take it, even from your boss.
00:07:31
I know some of you may not agree with me here, but truly, you get the choice to examine it, to question it, to consider it.
00:07:56
One of my favorite questions when it comes to feedback is, “How would it make perfect sense to them that they think that?” Because often, there's at least a small piece of truth you can understand, even if you ultimately disagree with the conclusion.
00:07:56
Maybe they interpreted your behavior as not being a team player. Maybe they interpreted your directness as being abrasive. Maybe they interpreted your passion as being aggressive.
00:08:21
That doesn't mean you need to change who you are. It simply means you can understand how they arrived at that conclusion. And from there, you get to decide what you want to do with that information.
00:08:21
The next time somebody tells you you're not collaborative, not strategic, too emotional, too loud, or not a team player, don't immediately believe it.
00:08:21
Create space. Don't reject it either. Get curious. Ask for a specific example because growth doesn't happen inside the labels. Growth happens inside specifics.
00:08:50
If you're struggling with your own mid-year review and finding yourself swimming in vague feedback, I'm doing a Grounded Conversations workshop. Go to LizJolley.com/grounded and sign up for the next workshop.
00:09:10
So whether you're preparing for your mid-year review or trying to make sense out of the one you've already had, let's get underneath those labels and into the specifics where the real learning lives.
00:09:10
Because that's the feedback we really do crave. Not the kind that's vague, where we catastrophize and make up all crazy stories about it.
00:09:10
So with that, I wish you all an amazing week. See you next time.
