The Magic of Feedback
Since the beginning of the adventure we call “NLP,” the communication model it introduced has been so systematic that it actually gave us a new way to think about exchanging messages: “There is no failure, only feedback.” This incredible paradigm shift emerged from systems theory, cybernetics, general semantics, and more. As a result, the founders embedded into the communication model the idea that we never, ever truly fail when sending or receiving messages (for example, in conversation); we only receive messages and responses. In fact, we always receive responses. In this, we are always successful! Isn’t that amazing? We succeed in getting a response, even if it’s not expected or required. In systems language, feedback is simply data, information, signaling what works and what doesn’t.
Therefore, any system open to feedback has a way to accelerate learning, development, and results. This is true for both human and non-human systems, living and non-living. If we treat feedback simply as information, we are light-years ahead of those stuck in the trial-and-error approach of the School of Hard Knocks.
Why? Because of the improvement effect of feedback. By receiving sensory-based data about how we’re doing—especially when we’re taking action—we can refine our skills and outcomes. We can adapt and adjust our part of the exchange.
The Mirror as a Feedback Tool
In Meta-Coaching, we use the mirror to illustrate the power and nature of feedback. After all, who doesn’t use a mirror every morning to get ready to face the world? We all align ourselves, or at least our faces, in front of a mirror to see our current state and use that information to make changes. A clean mirror in a bright, well-lit room offers sensory-based feedback without judgment, bias, or evaluation. It simply presents the facts. It reflects what is there, not what we wish was there! What we do with those facts—that’s the aspect of receiving feedback.
For us humans, the eyes and presence of others offer a mirror. How do we see ourselves, our personalities, our strengths and weaknesses in relationships? Isn’t it through the reflection others give us? An old Jewish proverb speaks to this, using the metaphor of a still pond as a mirror: “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”
Distorted Mirrors: The Human Challenge
Of course, the problem is that we humans are not clean, brightly lit mirrors. Often, what we reflect to others is more like a funhouse mirror at a carnival or circus—crooked and distorted. What we reflect says more about us than about the person looking into our eyes, heart, and mind. Why is that? What causes it? First and foremost, our internal conflicts and insecurities. We reflect according to our current state. We reflect from frames of beliefs, expectations, intentions, history, and so on, which govern our Matrix. That’s why any strong emotional state creates distortions. Fear, anger, sadness, guilt, frustration, lack, insecurity, and even love, joy, playfulness, optimism—all these states distort reality.
No wonder we constantly strive to step back from all our states and simply observe, simply witness whatever is happening. While we can never be as objective as a physical mirror, we can learn to develop the skill of “losing our mind and coming to our senses” so we can be more present, accepting, aware, and objective. This is the power and magic of being in a state of sensory awareness and being able to communicate in a sensory-based way.
From Sensory Awareness to Evaluation
We move to the evaluative level of awareness to draw conclusions, build beliefs, make decisions, set intentions, and create meta-level frames. This evaluative level prevents us from seeing the world, others, and even ourselves as we truly are, separate from all our frames, inner realities, images, and so on. The evaluative level makes us fundamentally blind, keeping us from facing the hard facts.
What does it take to suspend all our meanings, evaluations, and judgments? It takes great inner strength, a lot of self-confidence, self-worth, acceptance, willingness to suspend judgment, and a lot of skill and practice. To make this easier, we developed a process—the Benchmarking Model and Process. By setting criteria aligned with sensory-based behavior for various intangible skills, concepts, and principles, we created an empirically grounded set of measures. These metrics allow us to stay in sensory awareness and sensory language when making assessments. It’s not perfect, but it’s a big step forward.
With a sensory-based, practice-oriented set of metrics for working with concepts, we make it easier to train skills and take our abilities to the next level. And we do this without imposing our own values, beliefs, and programs on others. It also allows us to help others who want to give “feedback” but don’t know how to separate their judgments from the sensory-based data they’re reacting to.
Real-Life Feedback: Examples and Lessons
Recently, several people gave me feedback about my leadership style in conflict situations. Some demonstrated skill by offering sensory-based feedback from a state of impartiality, “just witnessing,” and reflecting what they saw and heard at the primary level; others did not. They offered distorted, dark, and convoluted judgments and evaluations. I had to help them separate “their stuff” from the sensory-based data to find out if there was any value in their comments at all.
There were three people in the first group. Each approached me and asked if I wanted feedback. I said, “Of course.” Each took time to set the frame, identify what, when, where, with whom, and the specific context. Then each described what they saw in sensory terms. I listened and then asked, “Is this my perception?” There’s something funny about mirrors—clean, clear mirrors—the “truth” they offer works best when it’s reflected without any agenda or hidden motive.
One person said, “I noticed you raised your voice to about twice your normal volume. There was tension in your vocal cords, so it sounded strained, and you didn’t pause for a response. How was that for you?”
He was right, and I said so: “Yes, that’s true. I was very upset and on the verge of getting angry.”
“Do you think that being upset, turning into anger, was appropriate? Was it the right state for that context?”
“Yes, I think so. I was really irritated by some extreme incompetence in someone’s work.”
“So someone’s incompetence pushes your buttons and triggers your upset and anger? Do you really think the person is incompetent? And if so, what do you expect from someone incompetent?”
Taking a deep breath, I realized I had set a frame in my mind that didn’t allow for someone else’s incompetence, and that “intolerance for incompetence” was a value that felt violated. “You’re right. I expected something different, not incompetence from someone clearly incompetent! That’s good feedback. I’ll note that and adjust my thinking frames, giving myself permission to tolerate incompetence, even incompetence that clashes with what I’m doing.”
Later, after adjusting to incompetence (!), I found myself not just angry but truly furious. The trigger this time was “saying one thing and doing another,” creating an appearance of integrity, deceiving trust, and betraying relationships. My coach that day was a skilled neuro-semanticist, and he reminded me that I had “just experienced a major map/territory shift.” Ah yes, “using my own tricks on me”—classic! It worked. After several (actually, many) deep breaths, I was invited to experience the meta-state of anger along with several resources.
“Thank you,” I said later. “I really appreciate you holding me accountable, and especially how skillfully you did it. You were excellent. I now have some new distinctions to incorporate into expressing my anger. This will make me a better leader.”
“So what are you taking away from this?” he asked, using one of my favorite techniques—one I borrowed from Michel Duval. With full permission to be with my anger and express it congruently in tone and volume, it dawned on me that, in the cultural frames of others, they misunderstood and didn’t appreciate congruence. Explaining this, I said, “I never gave myself permission to be incongruent. Being congruent and, ‘applying it to myself,’ acting with integrity, has always been one of my highest values. Now I see there are times when it’s better not to be congruent, but to be incongruent in expressing certain content.”
When Feedback Goes Wrong
Those on the “dark side of the mirror” (just a metaphor!) weren’t as skilled in their feedback attempts. One person wrote to me and started with, “You have a real problem!” When I replied, I asked about the attacking judgment: “What exactly do you mean? How did you come to that conclusion and evaluation?” He replied, “If you don’t know, you really have a problem.” Ah, judgments, judgments. Of course, that’s the problem with judgments. When we make a judgment, we don’t communicate what specifically needs to be done. “Having a problem” doesn’t offer anything concrete. It’s not sensory and therefore isn’t feedback.
After several exchanges, I picked up the phone to sort it out. It took some action and some coaching on my part, but eventually, we got to sensory-based data, and then we could distinguish between primary-level sensory information and evaluative meta-levels. His mirror was quite dusty and dirty and needed a good cleaning through accepting emotions, acknowledging tone and volume, and recognizing different evaluative systems. In the end, he understood and thanked me for patiently working with him.
I can’t say the same about another person. The next guy was so stuck in his judgment frames that only Pentecostal repentance, tears, gnashing of teeth, and confirmation of his great wisdom would have convinced him I wasn’t a condemned sinner doomed to hellfire. The distorted mirror he presented and operated from was locked in fundamentalist zeal that would make a terrorist proud. So I stopped offering ideas about his “great skill in imposing his poor maps on others” and asked aloud what insecurity might have led to this.
Inevitably, sometimes, in seeking feedback we can use and integrate, we have to dig through some offensive judgments, know-it-all attitudes, and smugness from certain people. But that’s the hard way. The easy way is to develop the advanced skill of separating fact from frame, sensory evidence from evaluations, empirical data you can see, hear, feel, etc., from logical leaps to some meta-level of beliefs or assumptions. An even easier way is to surround yourself with good people who also know this distinction and have worked to become, as much as possible, clean mirrors and clear in their communications. Then you have a real support team that will give you high-quality feedback.
The Role of a Skilled Coach
In large part, this is what any skillful coach does. A coach who can hear, distinguish, clarify, and explore sensory-based information, separate it from what’s based on evaluation, and do so from a state of not-knowing, just observing. Such a coach will likely develop a thriving business. After all, people dedicated to their own growth and development will pay good money to keep updating and evolving with the help of such a coach’s mirror. Given all this, we can all develop ourselves to be cleaner mirrors, able to reflect more accurately to others without judgment or imposing our own assumptions.