– VARADHARAJAN RENGASWAMY
In this current era, professionals of varied walks of life consider negative feedback as poisonous. They feel cornered and in-secured when a professional receives constructive negative feedback.
Have you got any negative feedback about you in the past or would you expect one in the future?
First, let us see what goes through in our mind when we hear negative feedback about us:
If we hear negative feedback from the manager, then we assume the manager is cornering us and he wants us to quit the organization. The manager is signalling that he has initiated a search for replacement already.
·From a colleague or junior, we consider that the other person dislikes me. We start neglecting that person as well as the people connected with him / her Then we go around saying that, I am handling a hell of lot of work load here and what I get, at the end of the day, is only brickbats and so on.
Next let us look at the side effects of positive feedback ·It creeps in complacency We have a mind block to hear constructive criticism because we strongly feel that we have learnt everything in this world and we are THE genius….no more learning required in our life. We will be at peak forever. But the truth lies in the fact that, Negative Feedback, really fosters our career growth.
How?
·It helps us identify our skill gaps (as-is and to-be). realizing the gap itself is a good beginning because only that assist us to find the ways and means to fill the gap. Constructive criticism helps us to identify weak areas in ourselves so we can work towards achieving excellence It motivates us to practice the concept of “continuous process excellence”. Learning is not a one-time event. We should continue to learn till our last breath.
How do we know what to learn next?
Negative feedback / constructive criticism is one of the inputs for learning.
Those who seek negative / constructive feedback are the ones that grow YoY and travels on path to excellence in their career and life.
Appreciations are sleeping pills while constructive criticism is a medicine that does precision tuning!!!
