We all tend to try to explain why — why we act the way we act, do the things we do, are the way we are. Explaining why is the best way to deflect feedback.
The reason the “let me explain why” approach is problematic is that when we spend our time defending and justifying our current way of being, we almost always miss the opportunity to ask the more relevant question: how did I/this team/this process come to be?
Our obsession with explaining why accentuates our larger desire to matter, be known and be valued. But what could change if we started with the assumption that every person and every process is a mini system. Then the relevant question to ask (if we are interested in change, especially in the face of receiving feedback), is what is this system (me, this team, the process) most inclined to do, how did it come to do that, and does it still serve the system’s high purpose? When we see ourselves as a system with ingrained tendencies, it’s much easier to take in feedback.