Pour yourself a cup of tea, turn your (right) ear toward your speakers and take a listen to the very first episode of the Hidden Brain podcast with host Shankar Vedantam! We’re talking a lot about feedback.
Author Sheila Heen, along with Douglas Stone, recently wrote a book called Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. One of their chapters focuses on a phenomenon called “switchtracking” — which Sheila says, is a pattern in feedback conversations “so common that it’s instantly recognizable.”
Essentially, switchtracking is when “someone gives you feedback, and your reaction to that feedback changes the subject,” Heen says.
She uses an example from Louis CK’s 2006 TV show Lucky Louie to illustrate. Louie and his wife, Kim, are getting ready for a child-free, romantic weekend, and Louie has just brought home some red roses.
“Listen,” Kim says. “Try not to take this the wrong way, OK? But, if we’re going to be married for the next 30 years, I need you to know that red roses aren’t my thing.”
Louie responds by changing the subject: “Okay well, um … can I critique how you just told me that?”
“The first person stays on their own track. The second person actually smoothly switches to a different topic, which is their own reaction to the feedback, and often the feedback that they have themselves for the first person,” Heen says. “They just get further and further apart … And they don’t even realize that they’re going in different directions.”
“I’ve told you before that I don’t like red roses,” Kim says. “Remember?”
“I just think that you should have thanked me for the flowers first, and then said the thing about the roses,” Louie responds.
“There are really two topics on the table,” Heen says. “Kim’s topic is, ‘You don’t listen to me,’ and Louie’s topic is, 'You don’t appreciate me.’ ”
Often, neither person even realizes that they are talking about two different subjects.
Trying To Change, Or Changing The Subject? How Feedback Gets Derailed
Illustration by Hanna Barczyk for NPR
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