Criticism ... or just feedback

We don’t like being criticized. We don’t like it because this means that we have some weak points and we have to work on them.

To take the best from this criticism, we can asses:

• how relevant are people who did it
• what critics repeat themselves
• what importance have these subjects into our life

If we switch the perspective, we take the criticisms as feedback. The differences are on intention (criticism is like a judge, while feedback is more as a corrective message).

To give proper feedback, you have to:

• choose a comfortable moment for feedback
• be specific
• focus on behaviors, not on personality
• deliver the feedback very close in time to the behavior
• facilitate a relevant feed-forward

Feedback is not only about the one-to-one relationship because companies also can receive feedback from their employees. For this, there is the habit of an employee engagement survey. To have an impact from this process, it has to be done with some periodicity and to take some decisions based on the results.

In the end, I think that giving feedback represents a moment of trust. If it is made with care, it can contribute to a stronger and reliable relationship.

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