How to Manage Negative Feedback
Feedback, whether you’re the one giving it or the receiving end, is extremely important in our lives. It helps us improve upon certain things that we may be lacking. You’ll hear frequent feedback from employers, teachers, students, friends and even family throughout your life. So being able to harness negative feedback is extremely important. As an assessor you probably know the importance of constructive feedback, so how can you manage negative feedback? We’ve got a few tips on how you can manage it for yourself.
Mindset
Negative feedback needs to be renamed as constructive feedback because that’s what it should be, constructive. It should highlight any things you’re not aware of and then make that person aware of it. To help them reach their full potential. We’ve also got plenty of blogs on how to give constructive feedback to stick your teeth into.
Stay Calm
Depending on the tone of communication, the body language of the person as well as the relationship you have with them, it may be difficult to get past any personal emotions you have. Try to stay calm and take a breath. As much as possible, listen rationally to what someone is saying to you.
If this is something you can’t do at the moment, try and rearrange another time to sit down and go through anything you need to with them.
Take Notes
Write down any problems they’re telling you about and the strategies they are suggesting. Doing this will allow you to focus the conversation and help you recap at the end. Which will also help you reflect on it at a later date.
Ask Questions
Find out exactly what the person needs and wants from you. Often, these adjustments are small, depending on the request. It’s vital that you are crystal clear on the steps you need to do to fix the issue. If the feedback is constructive, then the person giving you that feedback should be able to answer any questions you may have. They should be able to suggest any improvements needed.
Honesty
Communicate with the person who’s giving you the feedback about how you feel about what they’re saying to you. If you disagree with anything they’re expressing share it in a calm manner. It would be helpful to try and open up the conversation so that you can have a dialogue about what is being said. However, if you do agree, share this with them too. So you are letting them know that you agree and support what they are saying and want to change the things needed.
In essence, it’s helpful to yourself to be able to accept and manage negative feedback. Now negative feedback shouldn’t feel like an attack, if it does, bring that up for someone and make sure you get constructive feedback. If nothing constructive is said, you won’t be able to work on anything.