Why feedback is scary
We find ourselves making decisions and judgements that do not serve us or others well.
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” – Ken Blanchard
Our brains are exceptionally well-designed for a reality different from the one we live in.
Our brains are still wired to be hyper attuned to threats, and nearly as well-attuned to rewards. This orientation derives from a time when hyper-attunement was critical for our very survival. Responding quickly to a threat to our physical safety is the best thing a person can do.
The problem is that today, most threats are social, not physical, and the same response that once worked so well can often drag us down. Humans base decisions on many of the same pro-social, consensus impulses.
We avoid talking to the attractive stranger because something deep and ancient in us registers the possibility of rejection (threat) as a matter of life and death. When neuroscientists conduct brain scans of people exposed to social threats, such as a nasty look or gesture, the resulting images look just like the scans of people exposed to physical threats.
Our bodies react in much the same way. Our faces flush, our hearts race and our brains shut down. No matter if we are giving a speech to thousands or coming face to face with a tiger, our body’s response is the same: we want out.
We are constantly in surveillance mode – reading our environment for threats and discerning them with great speed.
This is happening so quickly that our conscious brain often doesn’t have time to get in on the conversation and remind our unconscious brain that these threats are not necessarily real.
We find ourselves making decisions and judgements that do not serve us or others well. “Let me give you some feedback” is similar to being attacked by a tiger in our brain that is hyper attuned to threats.
