Learn to Love Criticism: Tips for Benefiting from Negative Feedback

My otherwise overly sensitive and hyper vigilant daughter was mad as a wet hen. “Look what a student reviewer wrote on my English 350 paper” She held it up and in the corner was written ‘great job’. I didn’t have time to ask her anything before she said “I was looking forward to this class, there are some great writers and bright students and I expected to get some useful and constructive advice on my writing. ‘Great job’ – that doesn’t help me!”

I was not surprised at her reaction. She had attended grades 6-12 at an arts magnet school with a concentration in drama and lighting design for theater. Working in the theater includes lots of feedback -- positive, constructive and critical. Because she had learned early to expect feedback on her work and how to use it to improve her performance, she felt cheated when she didn’t get it in this college class. And this is from someone who, in other situations, does not respond well to criticism.

I wish this expectation about feedback could be part of workplace cultures. I don’t think anyone is born enjoying constructive criticism -- it is something you have to learn. I always include lessons on how to ask for, receive and use feedback when I train managers and I believe that both the receiver and the giver of feedback have a responsibility to be skillful.

So, if you would like to get better at receiving and using negative feedback, here are a few bits of advice to get you started.

1. Try to remember that, as unpleasant as bad news may be, at least you can do something about it once you are aware of the situation. I want to know ASAP if I have spinach in my teeth.
2. When someone is sharing observations and opinions on your work, listen closely and ask clarifying questions. The natural reaction is to explain or offer excuses, but doing that shuts down the information flow. Act like a journalist, collect as much information as you can.
3. Always take notes, but especially if the news is bad. It gives you something to do to help keep your emotions in check. Also, later you can review what you have written to sort out what is useful and what is not useful.
4. Even if the content of any particular message is untrue and completely unhelpful, you need to take it well so that you don’t discourage people from ever sharing their thoughts again. If you don’t react well to criticism, you will not get any more and the next time it might be life changing.
5. Practice. The more you practice accepting and using negative or constructive feedback the better you will get at it. You might even ask a giver of feedback to give you feedback on how easy it was to give you feedback.

The ability and willingness to accept and use feedback, both positive and negative, is one of the principle characteristics of high achievers. The sooner you start building this skill, the faster your rate of improvement and that is worth any short term discomfort. You may even get mad when you don't get criticized.