Receive feedback without defending or dismissing

Take in critical feedback completely before evaluating it — and look for the part that is true.

Why it works

Overcontrolled individuals often have sophisticated and rapid defenses against feedback that challenges their self-model: they find the factual error in the critic’s framing, the ulterior motive, or the exception that proves their approach correct. These defenses are fast and feel like intellectual integrity. The radical openness practice is to deliberately slow the defense sequence and search for the signal in the feedback before rejecting the noise.

How to do it

1. When receiving feedback, resist responding immediately — count to five, or say "thank you, let me think about that."
2. Before evaluating accuracy, search for the part that is correct, even if only partially.
3. Write down the feedback as given — not your interpretation of it — and review it 24 hours later when defensiveness has subsided.

Evidence

Feedback-seeking and openness to criticism are associated with faster skill acquisition and better performance in learning and organizational research; defensive responding is associated with slower skill development and reduced accuracy of self-assessment. (observational)

Feedback research is in professional and learning contexts; the application to RO-DBT’s openness practice is an extension of those findings to therapeutic settings.

Sources

• Ashford, Blatt & VandeWalle (2003), feedback seeking in organizations, Journal of Management

Common mistake

Finding the one inaccuracy in the feedback and using it to dismiss the entire message — which is intellectually defensible but produces no learning from feedback that is partially true.