Episode 28: Why Feedback Creates Resistance

Why does feedback so often create resistance—even when it’s thoughtful, well-prepared, and delivered with good intentions?

In this episode, we explore the subtle dynamics that shape everyday feedback conversations. What we believe are neutral observations often contain hidden interpretations, and what we express as feelings can carry unintended judgment. These small shifts in language can quickly trigger defensiveness and limit real learning.

By slowing down how we observe, speak, and listen, feedback can move from correction to genuine dialogue—creating space for understanding, accountability, and change.

The Orange Twist is hosted by Giovanna D’Alessio, MCC — reflections on leadership, culture, and change for HR professionals and organizational leaders.
Connect with Giovanna on LinkedIn.
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Transcript

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Episode twenty eight, Why Feedback Creates Resistance. I keep noticing something about feedback conversations at work. People prepare them carefully. Sometimes they even rehearse. They choose the right moment. They try to be constructive, and still the conversation becomes tense. The other person explains, pushes back a little, justifies. Nothing dramatic, but the learning we hoped for never quite happens. And I think part of the reason sits inside the way feedback is usually taught. Most trainings say something like this. First describe the behavior, then explain the impact it had on you. It sounds simple, yet when you listen carefully to real feedback conversations, something else happens. The behaviors that we describe is often already mixed with interpretation. A manager once told a colleague you were distracted in the meeting. It sounded like a factual observation. But if you pause for a second, how do we actually know someone was distracted? We don't see distraction. What we see are small concrete things. Someone checking their phone, someone asking a question that seems unrelated, or someone joining the conversation late and missing a piece. Those are observable moments. Distracted is already a conclusion. It's our explanation of what those behaviors might mean. And the moment that word enters the sentence, the other person hears something slightly different. Not curiosity, a label. So the conversation quietly moves toward defense. I wasn't distracted. I was actually thinking about the client situation. I just wanted to connect with the topic to another issue. Now, both people are talking about the interpretation. The observable behavior has disappeared. It happens all the time. You were defensive, you were negative, you were disengaged. Each of those words carries a story, a story created through our own lenses, our past experiences, our habits of interpretation, sometimes even our survival strategies. Two people can watch the same meeting and walk away with completely different explanations of what happened. And when feedback starts from interpretation, the other person usually feels the need to correct the story, which is understandable. There is another place where feedback conversations become complicated. Many trainings suggest sharing the effect the behavior had on us. Something like, when that happened, I felt la la la. Again, the idea is good, but the language we use often carries something else inside it. I felt abandoned, I felt devalued, I felt ignored, I felt unsupported. These sound like emotions, yet, if you stay with the sentence for a moment, they contain an accusation. Each one describes what another person supposedly did. If I say I felt ignored, the message that lands is not only about my internal experience, it also suggests something about you, that you ignored me. And the listener usually hears that part immediately. So the response becomes defensive again. I didn't ignore you. That wasn't my intention. Or I was dealing with three other things at the same time. So the conversation slowly turns into a negotiation about responsibility. Meanwhile, the original purpose of the feedback, which was learning, fades into the background. Sometimes the shift is very small. Instead of I felt ignored, someone might say, when the message I sent didn't get a reply, I felt a bit frustrated. Now the feeling is clearer, frustrated, concerned, maybe disappointed. Words that describe an inner state without defining what the other person did. The difference is subtle, but yet the atmosphere of the conversation changes. The listener does not immediately feel accused. There is more room to stay present. When observation stays close to what actually happened, and feelings stay close to what we genuinely experienced, something interesting happens. The conversation becomes lighter. Not easier necessarily, but lighter. People spend less time defending themselves, more time exploring what actually happened. Feedback begins to sound less like a verdict and more like a shared inquiry. What happened there? What did we each see? What might we try differently next time? And maybe the question is not only how we give feedback, maybe the question is from where inside ourselves this feedback is coming. Marshall Rosenberg used to say that every human action is an attempt to meet a need. When you listen to people through that lens, something shifts. The colleague who interrupts might be trying to bring clarity. The manager who insists on details might be protecting reliability. The teammate who stays silent might be trying to avoid conflict. You start listening underneath the behavior. And feedback begins to sound different. Less like correcting someone, more like revealing what is alive in you. You might say something like, in the meeting earlier, when the conversation moved to the new proposal and we shifted topics quickly, I felt a bit uneasy. Just that. Then maybe a pause. Clarity in those moments matters a lot to me. And now the other person can see the value behind the reaction, not a judgment, a value. And from there, a request becomes possible. Like, next time, could we stay a little longer with the topic before moving on? No accusation, no diagnosis of the other person, just a small window into your experience. Rosenberg often described this as speaking from the heart, not in the sentimental way, more like speaking from the place where observation, feeling, and need are still connected. When that happens, feedback stops being a tool for correction. It becomes a moment of contact. Two people looking at the same moment in time, trying to understand what mattered in it. And sometimes that simple shift changes the entire tone of the conversation. Not because the feedback is softer, but because it is more human. And strangely, when people feel that humanity, resistance tends to relax and the conversation can breathe again.