Why
you can’t handle negative feedback
Am I about to get
fired? You try and push
the thought to the back of your mind as you walk into your bosses office, close
the door and sit down.
She is smiling but you can tell
something is slightly off.
As the two of you make small talk,
the anticipation of what she’s about to say causes you to squirm uncomfortably
in your chair.
An awkward silence slices through
the room as talk about the weather fizzles out and the two of you are left
facing the real reason she called this little powwow.
Your boss begins by giving you a
handful of compliments. While her tone sounds genuine, you aren’t actually
listening to any of the words she’s saying — you’re too focused on what’s coming next.
“Sam, I’ve been so impressed with blah, blah, blah and
how you’ve done an amazing job of streamlining blah and blah. I couldn’t ask
for another blah… but…”
There it is — as soon as she says the
word “but” you feel your mind and
body brace for impact.
“… but… I have noticed a few areas where I think you
could improve…”
As your boss begins offering some
negative feedback, you feel a cascade of emotions well up inside of you.
Part of
you is feeling angry and defensive, fighting back the urge to lash out and tell her
she’s dead wrong… while another part of you is feeling hurt and inadequate,
searching for something anything you can say to help reinstill
her faith in you.
Once the meeting comes to a close
you walk out holding back tears, trudge into your office, close the door and
lick your wounds. For the rest of the day you’re feeling hurt, frustrated,
anxious and vulnerable.
The beast that is
negative feedback.
The short story you just read is
something most of us have experienced at some point or another — the
awful emotions and anxiety that come along with being told we aren’t the
greatest thing since sliced bread.
The anxiety-inducing ego-shattering
beast that is negative feedback is one that very few of us have figured out how
to tame — it’s one that we avoid at all costs.
Infact, we despise it so much that
according to research done by Harvard and the University of North
Carolina we will go so far
as to reshape our social circles within our workplaces to avoid colleagues who are more apt to give
us constructive criticism.
So, we are stuck between a rock and
hard place — do we submit our feelings to brutal
lashings at the hand of negative feedback or do we ignore it entirely and risk
never reaching our full potential?
Neither you nor I are rocket
scientists — but we both know the answer to this question — take
the negative feedback head on and grow because of it.
However, skillfully handling
constructive criticism is easier said than done. In fact, at times it feels
impossible. Let’s take a moment and discuss why that is…
Your brain on negative
feedback.
We are scared of negative feedback
for the same reason we’re scared of the dark — we’ve been hardwired to
be scared.
Our ancestors were more likely to be eaten by lions or
attacked by enemies at
night and because of this they developed an innate fear — it was this fear that allowed them to take the
appropriate precautions to keep themselves and their families safe.
Over time, a fear of darkness has
become deeply ingrained in our DNA because for most of human history it meant
danger. While today we are the top predators in the world, for most of human
history we weren’t — experts hypothesize this is where our innate fear stems
from.
Today, we don’t have to worry about
being eaten by a tiger when the lights go off but we still hang onto this fear.
In fact, 64% of British adults are still scared of the dark and nearly 20% of them still
check for “monsters” under their beds.
And our brains view negative
feedback in a very similar defensive way that they do darkness and monsters
under the bed — they feel threatened.
So, when our boss smiles and says
we need to work on [fill in the blank], while he isn’t going to reach across
the table and eat us whole… it feels something like that to our brains.
Just ask Dr. Martin Paulus, an
Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. He
claims the reasons we respond so poorly to negative feedback is because of the
portion of our brain called the amygdala.
It turns out that the amygdala
plays a big role in our fight or flight response. So, when you feel like
punching someone in the face or running out of the office when they give you
negative feedback… it’s because you’re hardwired to feel that way.
Your boss giving you
constructive criticism isn’t going to kill you, but it does in some weird way
make you feel like you’re in danger.
So, while feeling
threatened, hurt, angry or vulnerable about constructive feedback is
100% natural — it’s not acceptable to react to it poorly — by lashing out or
shutting down.
But, enough with the science, let’s
discuss how you can better handle and respond to negative feedback.
Taming the beast.
People react differently to
negative feedback.
Some folks internalize it causing
unnecessary anxiety that could impact their performance, while other people
play the blame game and ignore the feedback entirely.
Learning to handle negative
feedback properly has helped me to build a culture that fosters constructive
relationships among our 108 people team.
I want to share how we handle
negative feedback from our 3.5 million users here at JotForm and
explain some ways you can apply these tactics to your own career and life.
1 You should always ask for feedback
when a colleague or client shows displeasure
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of
learning.”
Yes, we’ve been hardwired to be
scared and defensive against negative feedback. But what if we actively tried
to understand why those unhappy people gave us that criticism in the first
place?
While it’s a nice massage to our
egos when folks tell us how great we are… we learn the most when users are
unhappy.
And, when are users
unhappiest? When they cancel. So, upon cancellation of a
subscription, we always ask what we could have done better in a simple
form to the user.
In many cases, they are leaving due to
an issue we can easily resolve. In these circumstances, we contact the user
directly via email and are able to get them back.
You can apply this to your own life
by taking the initiative to ask for feedbackwhen a client or colleague is unhappy versus waiting for
it or never hearing it.
While it requires leaving your ego
at the door, you will boost your personal and professional growth by having the
humility to ask where you messed up.
This approach does wonders for
removing the fight or flight response that comes along when we are taken by
surprise with negative feedback.
When you are starting the
conversation, your mind is telling your body that you are in control.
2 Asking for negative feedback can
build stronger relationships with the people around you
The interesting truth is, many of
those who criticise us in the first place can turn out to be our life-long
advocates if we decide to face our fears.
For instance, after collecting
feedback from our customers, we determine whether or not it is an easy fix or
something we need to pass off to our development team.
Most of the time, it’s an easy fix,
so we will directly contact our customers and in many cases successfully get
them to resubscribe to JotForm.
This has been amazingly beneficial
in building better, stronger relationships with our customers.
We’ve actually found that some of
the customers who cancel end up being our biggest brand advocates down the road.
You can apply this to your own life
by viewing negative feedback as an opportunity to build a stronger bond with
your colleagues or customers.
Many times, we as people just want
to be heard. We just want to be listened too.
When you show your boss,
colleagues, and customers that you want to improve and make their lives easier,
their frustration might shift to admiration.
That’s how you tame the
beast — now
take the reins.
Ultimately, feeling hurt,
frustrated and scared when it comes to negative feedback is natural. It’s
human.
But, as humans, we have the power
to control how we respond to these feelings and emotions.
How would your personal and
professional life change if you became more proactive about starting those
tough conversations? And, adopting a mindset where it’s not just about solving
the problem… but building a relationship that is stronger?
Aytekin Tank
https://medium.com/swlh/why-you-cant-handle-negative-feedback-7b39f0d1fb71
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