Afterward, we asked the speakers questions about whether they were worried about what their partner thought of them, whether they acquired any insight while talking, and whether they were confident in their beliefs. We instructed the listeners to “listen as you listen when you are at your best.” But we randomly distracted half of the listeners by sending them text messages (e.g., “What event irritated you the most recently?”) and instructed them to answer briefly (so the speakers saw that they were distracted).
We asked speakers to talk for 10 minutes about their attitudes toward a proposal for basic-universal income or a possible requirement that all university students must also volunteer. She might remember incidents where she was disrespectful to costumers or got angry at her colleagues, and be more open to discussing them and ways to change.įor example, in one laboratory experiment, we assigned 112 undergraduate students to serve as either a speaker or a listener and paired them up, sitting face-to-face. In contrast, if someone asks her to describe her interactions with other people at work and listens attentively while encouraging her to occasionally elaborate, she is likely to feel more secure with the listener and open up in ways she might not otherwise. If someone tells her this isn’t true, this will likely lead her to protect her view of herself by doubling down on her belief and discounting the other person’s judgment. This safe state enables speakers to delve deeper into their consciousness and discover new insights about themselves – even those that may challenge previously held beliefs and perceptions.įor example, consider an employee who believes that she always respects her colleagues’ and customers’ feelings. Rogers theorized that when speakers feel that listeners are being empathic, attentive, and non-judgmental, they relax and share their inner feelings and thoughts without worrying about what listeners will think of them. Listening as an avenue for self-change was advocated by the psychologist Carl Rogers in a classic 1952 HBR paper. In a recent paper, we consistently demonstrated that experiencing high quality (attentive, empathic, and non-judgmental) listening can positively shape speakers’ emotions and attitudes. Whereas feedback is about telling employees that they need to change, listening to employees and asking them questions might make them want to change. We wanted to explore whether a more subtle intervention, namely asking questions and listening, could prevent these consequences. In other words, they defend themselves by bolstering their attitudes against the person giving feedback. People may even reshape their social networks to avoid the feedback source in order to restore their self-esteem. For example, employees can handle negative feedback by downplaying the importance of the person providing the feedback or the feedback itself. This can make employees stressed and defensive, which makes it harder for them to see another person’s perspective. One reason that giving feedback (even when it’s positive) often backfires is because it signals that the boss is in charge and the boss is judgmental. This happened with both positive and negative feedback, mostly when the feedback threatened how people saw themselves. Yet, research revealed that feedback could actually hurt performance: More than 20 years ago, one of us (Kluger) analyzed 607 experiments on feedback effectiveness and found that feedback caused performance to decline in 38% of cases. Giving performance feedback is one of the most common ways managers help their subordinates learn and improve. The researchers explain the main barriers to high-quality listening and offer tips to help anyone become a better listener. This can make employees more likely to cooperate (versus compete) with other colleagues, as they become more interested in sharing their attitudes, but not necessarily in trying to persuade others to adopt them, and more open to considering other points of view. The research findings suggest that attentive and non-judgmental listening seems to make an employee more relaxed, more self-aware of his or her strengths and weaknesses, and more willing to reflect in a non-defensive manner. Researchers explored whether a more subtle intervention - asking questions and listening - could be more effective. But it can backfire when people become defensive. Feedback is one of the most common ways we help others learn and develop.
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