What is the best way to respond to co-workers’ feedback? How do you overcome defensiveness in the face of negative feedback? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Requesting feedback from your colleagues is the first step to improving your management skills, but that feedback means nothing if you don’t know how to respond to it. You need to resist the urge to become defensive and instead, figure out what you can do to improve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is how you should go about responding to feedback from your colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Once you\u2019ve requested and received feedback from your colleagues, your next step is to interpret and respond to the feedback. If you\u2019re lucky, their feedback will indicate that you only have one bad habit. In this case, your next steps forward will be simple: figure out what you\u2019re going to do to overcome that habit, and get started.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, if your feedback suggests you\u2019ve been engaging in two or three bad behaviors, the process of starting to change becomes a bit more complex. You\u2019ll need to decide which of your bad habits to address first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you receive feedback that suggests you\u2019ve got multiple bad habits, your initial instinct may be to try to overcome them all as quickly as possible. You may think that ceasing all of your bad behaviors at once will be the most effective and efficient way to become a better colleague and repair your reputation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, if you take this approach, you\u2019ll quickly become overwhelmed<\/strong>. Unlearning even one bad habit is challenging\u2014it takes a lot of time and energy. Overcomplicating this process by trying to change multiple habits at once will divide your time and energy in too many directions for you to make real progress. You\u2019ll quickly become mentally exhausted and struggle to continue with the process. For this reason, it\u2019s best to stick to fixing one behavior at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you should only fix one behavior at a time, which should you choose to tackle first? Goldsmith advises choosing the flaw that featured the most prominently in your feedback.<\/strong> For example, if 10% of the people you asked for feedback told you that you were a bad listener, but 80% of respondents said you have a problem with anger, tackle your anger issue first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldsmith argues that the more people bring up a flaw, the more likely it is to be a serious problem. Therefore, frequently mentioned issues should always be at the top of your list of things to change. <\/p>\n\n\n\nResisting the Urge to Get Defensive<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n