How to Be a Better Communicator Using the Feedback Wheel

If I could create my fantasy school curriculum, I would ensure every student received education on relational communication skills to help them be a better communicator. (And emotional literacy, and sex-positive sex education, and nervous system regulation.)

Yes, this does occupy my fantasies. Because improving communication is one of the top reasons couples come to me for therapy.

Relational communication happens when the focus is on connecting to rather than distancing from others. It’s about collaboration, respecting differences, empathy, and finding understanding.

In contrast, unrelational communication aims to be right, win, convince, or control.

The key: Focus on understanding your partner

If there’s one essential shift in perspective that I find helps my clients, it’s this: Focus on finding understanding rather than being “right.”

This is a radical departure from how many of us operate in day-to-day life. Individualistic and unrelational behaviours are frequently taught and rewarded, particularly in North American society. In areas such as academia, business, and law, the push is to defeat others in order to “win.”

Relationships require an entirely different set of skills. These are skills that, sadly, most of us did not learn in our vocational training. Thankfully, they are skills you can study and built now.

Focusing on understanding rather than being right helps my clients shift into a more relationally focused form of communication.

The Feedback Wheel is one technique you can use during conflicts with your partner to be a better communicator and have more productive, relationally focused conversations. Here’s how to do it.

The Feedback Wheel and how to use it to be a better communicator

Here’s how to have a relational conversation using a method called the Feedback Wheel, which was first outlined by Janet Hurley and built upon by internationally known family therapist Terry Real.

The model is called a “wheel” because one person will loop through one issue at a time while the other person listens. Once the speaker has finished, the listener becomes the speaker and responds, looping through their version of the issue while the first speaker listens.

The process of sharing and listening is iterative. Rather than a recipe where you go through the motions once and you’re done, you may cycle through a few rounds of sharing and listening until you reach an understanding on a particular topic.

How to prepare

Before beginning an important conversation, check in with yourself and your partner and make sure it’s a good time. Self-assess using the acronym HALT. If you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, save the conversation for another time.

Decide who will be the speaker, and who will be the listener for the first round.

Remember to proceed out of love and respect.

Here are the steps for one round of the Feedback Wheel. Proceed to the end and then switch roles and start again.

How to be the speaker

• Pick one thing to share with your partner that you would like them to understand: Your chances of being heard and understood increase if you don’t overload your listener.
• Describe a recent example to illustrate your experience: Imagine we had CCTV footage of your relationship. What would the cameras capture? Stay objective. Don’t describe anything that wouldn’t have been caught on tape. Avoid labels, like “lazy,” “inconsiderate,” or “jerk,” and absolute language, like “you always” or “you never” — this typically puts people on the defensive and blocks any chance of you being heard. 
• Say how the incident made you feel: For this, stick to emotion words. If this is a challenge, it can be helpful to have a printed list of emotion words or a feelings wheel (not to be confused with the Feedback Wheel). Building your emotional vocabulary is a vital step to being understood.
• Own your assumptions: Our brains constantly ascribe meaning to things, but it isn’t necessarily true. It’s important to own these assumptions. Be willing to discuss them with your partner so you can strengthen your mutual understanding. Whenever you have difficulty being objective, show your partner you’re aware of that. You could say something like, “The story I’m telling myself is …”, or “I make that mean …”
• Tell your partner something tangible they can do that would be helpful: This helps move the conversation from feeling like a “hit and run” emotional dump, and provides an opportunity to repair and grow.

How to be the listener

• Remember you are not here to be right, but to get it right: Know that you have the hardest job. It is against most people’s first impulse to put aside their defenses to really listen to someone else. Ground yourself with deep breaths as you hear about your partner’s experience.
• Let the other person speak without interrupting: If you struggle with not interrupting or with memory, feel free to jot notes or questions down on a piece of paper or in your phone, to ask when your partner is finished sharing.
• Put on your journalist hat, not your lawyer hat: Rather than thinking about whether you agree, think about whether you understand what they’re saying. Could you summarize what they shared with you? Ask questions to help fill in gaps in your understanding.
• Put yourself in their shoes: Imagine how you would feel if you were them.
• Be as generous as you can in meeting your partner’s request: As long as it isn’t something that will make you resentful, depressed, or withdrawn, it will benefit the ecosystem of your relationship if you are able to step up and support. If you struggle to know when to compromise and when to hold your ground, check my article on the topic of willing sacrifices.

Example conversation: Alex and Priya

Alex notices she is feeling frustrated and would like to bring an issue up with her partner Priya. She asks Priya if now is a good time to talk using the Feedback Wheel. Priya says she needs to get a snack first, but will be open to talking in 15 minutes.

They agree that Alex can share what’s on her mind and that Priya is open to listening. They pull up the list of steps to follow on their phones to use the feedback wheel.

They both acknowledge that the exercise is a bit cheesy, but remember they are doing it because they want to improve their communication and connection together.

1. Alex brings to mind an example from the day before of a pattern of Priya’s behavior that bothered her. The listener, Priya, notices her own capacity to listen in this moment, assessing herself for any “HALT” factors (hungry, angry, lonely, or tired).
2. Alex begins by telling Priya: “When you come home from work and drop your bag on the ground by the door…,” as Priya listens without interrupting.
3. Alex continues: “…it makes me feel resentful.” Priya demonstrates that she is listening by nodding, making eye contact, and offering periodic acknowledgements such as “mhmm,” “OK,” or “yes.”
4. Alex explains how this makes her feel, acknowledging her feelings are subjective: “The story I’m telling myself is that you expect me to always pick up after you, and you don’t care about the extra burden that puts on me.” Priya continues to listen actively, by repeating back phrases and emotion words she hears Alex say. When she doesn’t understand something, she asks a clarifying question. Even though Priya doesn’t agree, and would prefer to drop her bag down by the door when she returns home, she demonstrates empathy by imagining what it would feel like to be Alex. Priya says, “I can understand how you would feel that way. I would also feel resentful if that’s what was going on in my head.”
5. Alex makes a specific request: “What would be helpful for me would be if we could come up with a system together around tidying responsibilities.”
6. Priya repeats Alex and asks clarifying questions until she feels she understands what Alex is communicating. She checks in with Alex by asking, “Did I get that right? Anything else you’d like to add?” Alex confirms that Priya is understanding her correctly.
7. They move on to a discussion around meeting Alex’s request by scheduling a time to brainstorm a new tidying system at home.

Why to consider working with a relationship therapist

Communication techniques are often just the tip of the iceberg of a couple’s relationship challenges. Chances are there are larger issues at play that make communication difficult.

That’s why I believe couples should consider seeing a relationship therapist to help them work through the barriers they face to compassionate and effective communication.

Many of us were never taught what a more relationally-focused style of communication even looks like, so studying and practicing this in therapy will only benefit your relationships.

Communication approaches you might learn in therapy

I pull from various communication models with my couples in therapy, and take the time to practice together. The goal is help them become better communicators by learning to have relational conversations.

The core concept of needs-based communication stems from psychologist Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication approach, which he created in the 1960s.

In the following decades, the field of couples therapy built off this philosophy, and other experts created a variety of needs-based styles of compassionate communication, including:

• Gottman-Rapoport: You can read more about this approach in Dr. John Gottman’s book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.
• Imago Dialogue: Learn more in the book Doing Imago Relationship Therapy in the Space Between by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.
• Feedback Wheel: You can read about this approach in the book The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work, by Terrence Real.

The final word

In a couples therapy session and in real life, we often only have time or capacity for one direction of sharing, which means the other person will have to wait until the next session or conversation to speak to their side. This isn’t a scheduling error — this is real life.

Being a better communicator means practicing delayed gratification. It is to put aside the strong impulse to react, get defensive, blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. It is to put your stuff aside to really be there for the other person.

It is relational thinking — an understanding that being a good listener is a gift to your partner that doesn’t take anything away from you. It is a benefit to the ecosystem of your relationship, which is to say, it helps both of you.

A strong relationship builds trust and an atmosphere of generosity: that there will be more opportunities in the future for both partners to share and be heard.