Negative feedback can take many forms: suggestion, input, critique, review, observation, advice, sarcasm, condemnation, playful jab, hurtful insult, or simply a raised eyebrow. Whatever its form, feedback is essential to learning.
As a child, Brad Cohen exhibited the symptoms of Tourette syndrome but had not yet been diagnosed. This led to a lot of heartache. Without a diagnosis to help his teachers understand that he could not control the sounds he made and the behaviors he was exhibiting, Brad suffered through many difficult situations:
“In fifth grade, my noises got louder. After one series of barks, my teacher humiliated me by making me stand in front of my classmates and apologize. As much as the humiliation hurt, that teacher had a huge positive impact. Because of that incident—and many others like it—I eventually vowed that someday I, too, would become a teacher—the great teacher I never had.”1
Although we are appalled at the way Brad Cohen’s teacher treated him, we are in awe of Brad’s ability to push through the discomfort and find a gift in such cruel feedback.
At camp one summer, Brad received the “Froggy Award” because he kept everyone entertained with the funny noises he made. People have since asked him if he felt belittled and ridiculed by the award. He responded, “At that time, a source of wisdom deeper than I could understand was already guiding me to ignore any jabs and to choose instead to accept the element of honor that was there.”
There is always an “element of honor” to be found in feedback: You’re strong, and you can handle it.
By focusing on the element of honor—rather than the insult—in the feedback, Brad Cohen demonstrated an amazing ability to regulate his emotions in the face of malicious feedback. Research in the field of neuroscience has proven the view of Stoic philosophers: our emotions are not determined by events but by the meaning we ascribe to those events.2 (If you have difficulty regulating your own emotions during difficult feedback conversations, we encourage you to read our blogs, “The Power of Identifying the Gift in Criticism” and “How to Manage Strong Emotions During Difficult Feedback Conversations“.)
Leo Buscaglia observed, “The worst sin in the world is going to bed at night as stupid as you were in the morning.” Accepting the element of honor in criticism—regardless of its packaging—helps you efficiently gather the teachings of each day, so you will always go to bed a little wiser than you were the day before.
1 Brad Cohen with Lisa Sysocky, Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008.
2 L.M. Braunstein, J.J. Gross, and K.N. Ochsner, “Explicit and Implicit Emotion Regulation,” Journal of Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, 12(10), 1545-1547, October 2017.