How do you react to Criticism?

Good Morning Brilliant and Excellent People,

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As a member of the high school football team, when we go for  matches in other schools, one of the factors that determines winning or losing was the crowd support. We hear the cheers from the crowd, some motivating us which usually is from our small team of supporters and there’s a larger noise booing us, mostly from the opponent’s side. 

Along with our own preparedness, whichever one we choose to react to mostly determines the outcome of the game. When we listened to the ‘boos’ and reacted to it, we started to have poor outcome, but when we listened to the small voices of cheers in the crowd, we were motivated and encouraged to do better. 

Even when we made mistakes and our team of supporters started to boo us, reacting to that too also altered the level of confidence we might have had to win the game.

Moving on in my career path, I have realized how the experience of the football team translate into every other aspect of our lives especially at work. I have seen employee performance decline greatly because of criticism and negative feedback, and I have also seen employee output increased greatly in spite of criticism and negative feedback. 

This brought me finally to one conclusion, that it was not merely the criticism and or praises that affects your performance, it is how you respond to it that does.

Your response can change everything. It can mean worrying less about negative feedback and critics, it can mean integrating yourself to receiving praises/critics and filtering it through the eyes of your expectations and preferences. It can mean greater productivity because you see the areas you need to improve on through the eyes of other people, but just waiting on the praises and criticism as a way forward is not a good sign of emotional intelligence.

Balancing Criticism and Praise

It is expected that when an employer constantly praise and commend his/her employee’s work, output should increase, however, latest research indicates that “Rewarding people with praise isn't going to make them perform any better…” Charles S. Jacobs (Management Rewired). 

Neither will criticism, as a matter of fact, criticism results in a much stronger emotion than praises, that is, continuous criticism will produce unmotivated staffs and a higher turnover. However the timeliness of the feedback is very important, when you learn to give praises at appropriate times and often, it encourages a better reaction to criticism as there is a better understanding of such criticism.

More often than not, our society makes us dependent on praise and avoidance of criticism. It’s seen as though the praise in itself is an approval and a sign that whatever it is you’re up to is absolutely wonderful. In reality, this is not the case. Feedback have their place in the professional scene, whether it’s praise or reproach.

Praises makes us see how good we have done, criticism makes us see how good we need to do, it all depends on how you look at it.

The receiving end: how you chose to respond affects everything

It can be difficult receiving negative feedback, it doesn’t matter who is now giving it, there is a strong tendency to think of the person as the enemy and take the feedback as an attack on our personality, and that is why emotional intelligence is very importance.

Here are some of the best tips to responding differently:

Think before you say anything: Our first response is to be defensive and find an excuse when it comes to criticism or to be easily entreated when we are being praised. In both situations, think and evaluate what is being said before reacting.

Focus on the message and not the messenger: When we recognize that we can learn from that feedback and focus on the message, it changes our perspective of the feedback as a means of improvement and not as a personal attack

Determine the motive: Some people want to give feedbacks without your best interest. They do so either to receive favours or as a result of deception. Sit back and analyse the feedback you just got, what is it saying? How is it being said? Some feedback are merely opinions and is not worth another minute, some feedbacks are aimed at your improvement and some feedbacks are said to spite you.  Determine the motive and respond appropriately but with courtesy.

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