Art of Growth Giving and Responding to Negative Feedback

There are positive psychology approaches that can be learned to be able to effectively and constructively give and receive negative feedback. Feedback is an important part of a culture and personal growth because it gauges where a person is going great and where they can improve on.

But sometimes, people find it hard to give feedback especially when it’s a negative feedback because although it is supposed to motivate a person to develop their work and skills, they might take it on a different light and be actually demotivated.

The good thing is, there are ways on how to give and respond to negative feedback, positively.

Before you continue you might like to consider our free worksheet on exploring “Stop People-Pleasing”. Please download this worksheet here.

In this article:
How to Constructively Give Negative Feedback
Responding to Negative Feedback

How to Constructively GIVE Negative Feedback

Before diving in giving feedbacks, you must first know the difference about being constructive and being critical:

• Constructive – remarks delivered either positively or negatively, but focuses and encourages growth.
• Critical – remarks that serves no other purpose but to point out how someone is did a wrong job, failed or ridicule.

But the original goal of feedback is to serve as points of improvement. Being the sender of feedback, giving it constructively entails curating a message that points the things that has gone well and what needs to be improved by the receiver. Your receiver should understand the things to change and have a clear vision of the skills required in accomplishing a task. But how can you do it? An easy way to demonstrate how to actually do it is by listing down the current dilemma into two columns: Problems and Solutions. When you have listed down the specifics of your current situation, let’s try to see the remarks that you come up with it using each item on your list. You’ll realize that: When you focus on the problems, most of your remarks will be mostly critical remarks; while; Focusing on solutions gives a greater perspective on how to give constructive resolutions. The following are just some of the elements of a constructive negative feedback that you may want to check before you put it out to your colleagues and employees:

1. Context— Some people may it hard to give negative feedback fearing that it may sound like a personal attack to the other person. So before citing a specific behavior or problem, you may want to also mention the context or specific situations around the feedback.
2. Intention — Now this is where you put to use the Problem/Solution list mentioned above. You may want to sound constructive and not critical therefore mentioning to the person receiving feedback, the things and options of what they may do.
3. Timing – a person should not hold off for long a feedback because regency adds to the element of context.
4. Non-judgment – this is another element that also improves context. Being non-judgmental is putting into words that the actions that you are calling out is different from the whole individuality of the person. This is also expressed by letting the other person explain their side first, before settling things out.
5. Two-way accountability – This is done through an expression of support of the person giving feedback to the recipient by offering help, and making sure that the feedback is done constructively to encourage growth.

Feedback impacts performance, productivity and satisfaction (at work and personal life), and sometimes, we focus on these three processes more that these are also affected by experiences, strengths and their weakness. Positive psychology programs are just one of the way for you to learn about helping people understand that there is positivity in negatives. Who knew that people can regard creativity, humor, and bravery as points of strengths? The concept of character strengths are just one of the most useful applied positive psychology approach that can be used in improving happiness at work and performance. This way, a person’s strength is identified and encourage improvement in the other characteristics that can be vital for work.

Responding to Negative Feedback

Getting feedbacks is a good metric of performance and effective leadership. In particular, negative feedback can be valuable because it allows us to monitor our performance and alert individuals to changes they need to make.

I learned from my positive psychology program that leaders who request for critical feedback are seen as more operative by employees, superiors, , and peers, while those who primarily seek out positive feedback are rated with lower ineffectiveness.

But how do they do it? Responding to negative feedback is not always easy. It can bring out defensiveness, anger, and self-consciousness, which then impairs our effectiveness.

Some people also find it hard to receive negative criticism at face value even when it was given objectively and with the purest of motives. Why?

Because negative feedbacks can also be inaccurate and sometimes given despicably to throw us off. Examples of it are:

• laying out unachievable expectations,
• projection of another person’s issues to us, and
• critical remarks to trigger our emotions.

That why is very important that you know how to filter negative feedbacks and know what is real and how to go around the hard criticisms. So when you have encountered the mentioned above, the following are empirically supported approaches to help you respond on critical feedback in an openly, calm, insightful, and positive manner to encourage growth and improvement without damaging confidence and self-concept.

1. Take your time before responding/reacting

William Swann, a renowned psychologist once mentioned that we experience “severe disorientation and psychological anarchy that occurs when recognize that very existence is threatened.” Negative feedback conflicts with the concept of our self-image thus we tend to react overwhelmingly to it (by crying, bouts of anger etc.). So this brings the question:

Does being more self-aware improve your reaction to negative feedback? Surprising results were found to the study done on people with high self-awareness. These people although high in self-awareness were unexpectedly very human and admitted that they hated knowing that they were not perfect!

Most people will react right away on the negative feedback, but studies found that highly self-aware people gave themselves time to process and bounce back before they gave a response.

The following approaches were just some of the things that they did. We can use these too to help us in biding our time before we respond on negative feedback.

Cognitive reappraisal – changing their thinking that the information they received is helpful and productive than just upsetting, surprising and damaging. A way to do it is by labeling the emotions felt specifically than just generally saying it has angered or unpetted an individual.

Self-affirmation –Taking a few minutes to remind ourselves of another important aspect of our identity, besides being threatened, lessens our physical response to threats and helps us be more open to negative feedback. When we have the bigger picture, it helps us put feedback in a proper perspective.

When you have done the following, then and only then should you decide how to respond.

2. Filter the true points of improvement.

Sometimes, negative feedback are inaccurate and it can be a bit hard to understand that not everyone see us the way we see ourselves. And we can only act on feedback when we truly understand it, this brings the importance of having a small circle of “honest and loving critics” who you trust and because as philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact”, and thus you need to know which feedback is real to truly improve and grow.

3. Visibility or it didn’t happen.

People may find that behavior can be changed but people’s perception of an individual maybe harder to change. Not everyone will automatically notice it. Behavior change from negative feedback can easily done but when the people don’t notice it, it may become a bit discouraging.

This brings a need for a certain symbolic action, an action that is easily noticed to let people show that you are acting on the feedback that they gave. For example a friend that remarked that you are missing out on school and lessons, a visible action that you may want to do is to ask for help and show them that you are asking and copying notes and eager on catching up the topics you missed due to your situation.

4. Keep them close — and reset

Getting negative feedback is uncomfortable at first and people may tend to avoid people who gave them a not so good feedback, but the gem here is… it’s a reason to keep them closer!

Tasha Eurich, a psychologist, mentioned how a patient she handled used a negative feedback to be an avenue for growth. Rachel (her patient) received a feedback from the department heads that she was does not proactively communicate. She immediately realized that she can use to her advantage by doing the following:

• She thanked them for the feedback and apologized sincerely for the conflict.
• Then she suggested that they reset their expectations to move forward.
• Then she committed to have monthly meeting to seek suggestions and how she could be a better partner.

After a few months, she again received a feedback for her responsiveness and partnership and they continued to celebrate together when things went well.

5. Changing is JUST ONE of the OPTIONS.

One of the best response to negative feedback is being honest and admitting our flaws — but it’s only a good one if you admit it to yourself first, and then to others. This sets out a range of expectations of our behavior in an environment or a situation. If we let go of the things we cannot change, it helps us free the energy to keep a focus on changing the things we can.

For example a worker shows up late every morning and was called out by their manager. If a worker would admit to his boss that he has a lot on his plate in the morning (being a father, son to an ailing mother and bringing children to school) which makes him late everyday, and when he further supports that even though he is late, he stays out late in the afternoon to complete the work that he needs to do, then the boss may understand why he comes late.

One of the things I learned in my positive psychology program is that there is a good that can come from being honest in what we really are. If a behavior cannot be changed, admission is the first step to clear and set out expectations from you.

The above approaches applied positive psychology concepts in dealing with giving and responding to negative to negative feedback. Feedback is a good part of a communication cycle and a good motivation for growth and success.

People need not always tread around giving and receiving negative feedback, the tips I mentioned in this article just shows that the path to growth may be ugly, but knowing how to put to use the ugliness may serve you well!

If you’re ready to build confidence in handling feedback and overcome self-doubt, download our Stop People-Pleasing Workbook here to start using negative feedback as a tool for growth.