How to tell the difference between constructive and destructive negative feedback

“Could I offer you some feedback?”

Which parts of you braced on reading that? For me it’s the belly and solar plexus.

It’s a very rare person indeed who would respond to that question with an unreserved “Oh, yes please!”

Mostly because the feedback that follows is rarely glowing.

“Could I offer you some feedback? You are amazing and everything you’ve done lately has been incredible. OK, bye”

That kind of positive feedback would be nice, but more often, the feedback following the question is negative. (Positive feedback is wonderful – but people rarely feel they need to ask permission before sharing it!)

I often hear the term “constructive feedback” used as a euphemism for all negative feedback. In my view, while negative feedback can certainly be incredibly constructive, it can also be destructive, or sometimes simply not helpful. But when we are braced to take a punch, it can be hard to tell the difference.

It feels intensely personal. But it helps to think of feedback as data. Feedback is data about the impact of your actions on others.

Remember that feedback is not about who you are but about other people’s subjective responses to what they have perceived.

Others’ responses to you

Other people necessarily bring their own history and framework to any situation. To influence someone’s response to you, all you can change is your own actions.

You can use information about others’ responses to help you in deciding what changes you want to make, if any, to your own actions.

It helps to take a step back and take what I call a “curious pause”. Breathe out (soothes the nervous system and can help bring you back to calm, switching the higher order thinking back on) and consider how much weight to give the feedback.

Some clues to help decipher whether a piece of feedback is something you’d like to take on.

No single one of these criteria is definitive, of course. If some feedback is ticking a few of the “potentially helpful” boxes, you then need to decide whether you will take it on board or not.

It’s best to do this from a calm state – not while you’re in fight or flight mode.

It may be that after consideration, you decide you don’t agree with the feedback. That’s fine – their subjective framework is different to yours, and there will always be a diversity of ideas about the “right way” to do things.

There can, though, be some absolute gold in constructive feedback and it’s well worth finding ways of being able to hear it.

I also love to give and receive the “you are amazing” notes – that’s important too!

Until next week, take care of yourself and others,

Madeleine

PS If you are a lawyer who is starting to wonder if it’s possible to be successful as a lawyer AND happy as a human (or if you know a lawyer like that), Thriving as a Lawyer could be just the ticket. Send me a message to enquire, and please share with anyone you think may benefit.

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