Fear of Feedback

Program Highlights

• How to transform a feedback-aversive environment in your company
• How the power differential affects giving and receiving feedback in organizations.
• Why you need to stop guessing what your boss wants, and actively go out and get the feedback you need.

Giving feedback to your subordinates can improve their performance and make you look better as a leader and manager. Receiving feedback can enhance your career and make your job more rewarding. Yet, in most organizations, there is a two-way conspiracy of silence that subverts honest feedback and causes a downward spiral of maladaptive behaviors: procrastination, denial, brooding, jealousy, confusion, blame and self-sabotage.

Strober and Jackman detail a road map for moving out of the fear and anger that lie beneath these behaviors, and into a mode that encourages open communication. They provide a four-step process for actively pursuing the feedback you need, and methods for giving feedback that allow you to feel comfortable and in control, whether the message is negative or positive.

Dr. Jay Jackman received his BA from Columbia University, MD from Harvard Medical School and JD from the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

Dr. Myra Strober has a BS in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University, an MA in economics from Tufts University and a PhD in economics from MIT.