Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (even when it is Off Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and Frankly, You're Not in the Mood)

"The Performance Evaluation At Work, The Parenting Advice From Your Mother-In-Law, The Lecture By The Cop Who Just Pulled You Over, Those Suddenly Too-Tight Jeans. We Get Feedback Every Day Of Our Lives, from friends and family, colleagues, customers, and bosses, teachers, doctors, and strangers. We're assessed, coached, and criticized about our performance, personalities, and appearance. We know that feedback is essential for professional development and healthy relationships - but we dread it and often dismiss it. That's because receiving feedback sits at the junction of two conflicting human desires: we want to learn and grow but we also want to be accepted and respected just as we are now. Thanks for the Feedback is the first book to address this tension head on. It explains why getting feedback is so crucial yet so challenging and offers a simple framework and powerful tools to help us take on life's blizzard of offhand comments, annual evaluations, and unsolicited advice with curiosity and grace. The business world spends billions of dollars and millions of hours each year teaching people how to give feedback more effectively. Stone and Heen argue that we've got it backward and show us why the smart money is on educating receivers - in the workplace as well as in personal relationships. It's the receivers, after all, who interpret what they're hearing and decide whether and how to change. Coauthors of the international bestseller Difficult Conversations, Sone and Heen have spent the last fifteen years working with corporations, nonprofits, governments, and families to determine what helps us learn and what gets in our way. They've discovered that while receiving feedback can be fraught, doing it well can be taught. Here you'll learn how to: Identify "truth," "relationship," and "identity" triggers that block learning; Make Sense of even off-base or poorly delivered feedback; Uncover blind spots to see hidden impacts of our behaviors on others; Draw Boundaries in the face of unrelenting or destructive criticism; and Regain balance and perspective in even the toughest conversations. Whether you're involved in an organization, a team, or a relationship, Thanks for the Feedback will help you learn effectively - not just from a caring coach or beloved mentor, but from just about anyone. With humor and clarity, the authors blend the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology with practical, heard-heeded advice. This book is destined to become a classic in the world of leadership, organizational behavior, and education." --