I am fairly new to the US and I noticed that quite a few of my team members justify their actions if I am giving them feedback. To me it sounds like they are not really accepting the feedback. Is this normal behavior or might I be doing something wrong? Never experienced that before. I am probably pretty direct but NYC working culture doesn’t seem to be too far off from what I am used to from my home country and I always stay fact based also explaining this is an opportunity for them to improve.

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I would say this is normal behavior, and it’s not that they’re not taking your feedback, it’s more in the hyper-competitive US job environment we’ve been conditioned to try and justify and qualify situations because most people are afraid of failing and not being perfect. I would say for the most part they are hearing you, and it’s just the “feedback dance” that goes on.

Ways to maybe break that dynamic down is to first highlight areas of their strength, and then ask them where they feel as though they can improve. After, give your feedback and they might be less justifying/ defensive as 1) they are comforted knowing you think they’re doing good work and 2) their mindset is already framed in addressing areas of improvement.

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Because my profile hasn’t updated. I’m two years into working now 🤣

I do this but it’s not really to “justify.” I like to explain my thought process for why I might have done something “wrong” in hopes that it helps the person giving feedback understand where I was coming from, and either explain why that thought process wasn’t correct or why it was but why the follow through wasn’t ideal. So in other words I do it to make the feedback more pointed, although I can see how it might come off as trying to “justify” a mistake.

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I'm with you A2. I have a reason for everything I do, even if that reason is simply that I wasn't thinking straight or missed a consideration in my judgement.

For some people (like myself), explaining my "why" isn't challenging the feedback, it's real-time comprehension to pinpoint what I need to change in my process and thinking. Without getting to that level, the feedback is rarely actionable.

It's only "rejecting" the feedback if they're explaining why they won't change what they did. Anything else that's open to the changes is just next-level dialogue.

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That was one of the big mistakes I was gonna make in my career until a friend of mine drew my attention to it. Never try to justify when you receive feedback from your mentor. It makes you look like someone who refuses to learn which is really bad.

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I am not saying your mentor is always right. The idea is when you receive negative or positive feedback, you can simply respond by " Thank you" or "Noted!" and move on. ofc you can always prove your mentor is wrong later ;)

And just to clarify, I am a manager in my firm and am talking about junior level consultants

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I am from Asian country where one way feedback is common and juniors thank their seniors for valuable advice and start looking for opportunities 😄. If there is no response to your feedback , either you are irrelevant or your feedback is irrelevant or they don’t care.

I prefer to get counter information or justification of why someone did it in a particular way, which helps me to improve my feedback mechanism.

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Feedback is a 2 way street and NYC culture is direct and brash bordering on douchey, so not the standard to emulate entirely

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Love the direct, to the point, no nonsense talk

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Have you asked your team members how they like to receive feedback? Do you have a working agreement with them?

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Best response to feedback positive or negative:

“Thank You”

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What country are you from?

Or Dutch, like that dude from Ted Lasso

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The key word is justify. Are they justifying or walking you through their through process go get further feedback? I'd say people in the US are pretty open and don't hold back their thoughts, regardless of seniority. So they may just be speaking what they are thinking. This could come off as many different ways but really depends on the person.

Personally, I sometimes explain my thinking to help get to the root cause of why I made the mistake. Or sometimes I'm an asshole and value the feedback but argue for arguments sake, but I would only do that with close friends.

What’s the frequency of your feedback? Is there culture of providing unsolicited feedback often in your organization?

Not uncommon with more junior folks.

I'll stop then and say, understand that there were factors going into this, and don't want to rehash it. What I ask going forward is that...

That would be for on the spot feedback for activities, versus more of the step back, look holistically.

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