Oliver Martin walks us through how we communicate with people when challenges arise, demonstrating some tips and techniques for providing effective feedback.

To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

Here’s the video link of the transcript below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-UmqeXylKg

{Transcript}

Picture this: you’re on your way home from work, and you’re extremely hungry. You get home, walk through the door, and to your surprise, there’s dinner—and a further surprise is that it was your turn to cook. Wow, you appreciate your partner even more. So excited, you sit down and dig in to savor that first bite of chicken—and something doesn’t taste right. Actually, now that you think about it, it hasn’t tasted right the last couple times your partner made something for you.

Of course, at that moment your partner looks at you and says, “So how does it taste?” How do you respond? Have you ever been in that situation?

Or perhaps it’s similar to the situations some HR professionals have shared in our workshop. You have that employee who’s consistently underperforming or consistently arriving late—what do you do? Or perhaps it’s like some of our other participants in which they’re in a negotiation, and the other side presents an offer that is way below what they expected—how do you respond?

You have an option: to respond with criticism or feedback. Now, why is this even important? Well, if your goal is to improve the situation, then you’ll likely want to determine whether it’s better to give criticism or feedback. Is there a difference?

Criticism is defined as the expression of disapproval of something or someone based on perceived faults or mistakes. Feedback is defined as information about actions, a product, or a person’s performance, which is used as a basis for improvement.

Clearly, there’s a difference. Criticism aims to push the person down. Feedback aims to pull the person up. Criticism says, “You messed up. What’s wrong with you?” Feedback says, “This is how your behavior landed for me—was that your intent? How can we work together to improve the situation?”

Criticism keeps you in the past. Feedback helps you move forward. Understanding this is important as we assess situations and people’s performance.

In a negotiation, if the other side presents you with an offer that isn’t close to what you expected, feedback means you share how it landed with you. Feedback means you work with them to improve the offer. Criticism means you tear apart the offer and tell them why it’s awful. And if you’re not careful, by criticizing that offer, you’re also criticizing them—after all, they’re the ones who came up with it.

When you look at studies of criticism and how it affects brain function—while there aren’t that many—a recent study from King’s College in London shared that listening to criticism activates brain areas involved in the cognitive control over negative emotions. Think about that. Criticizing someone triggers the part of their brain that controls negative emotions. Is that what we want in negotiation? Is that what we want in the workplace?

Now let’s be clear: not giving criticism is not the same as not being critical. We need to use our critical thinking skills. We need to critically evaluate proposals that come to us—the pros, the cons, the merits—and employees’ performance. We must use our critical thinking skills. It’s when we criticize the individual that it poses a problem.

And let’s be clear about feedback—feedback is not aimed at making the person feel better. It’s meant to help them do better.

So how do we know if we’re giving criticism or feedback? A few tips:

You see, the way I see it—feedback is meant to do what the first part of the word says: feed. So let’s feed each other with ways to improve. Let’s nourish each other with ideas and thoughts to get better. And let’s do it in a way that’s digestible, so they can absorb the nutrients and grow.

Now it’s your turn. Provide me with some feedback—you.