Getting feedbacks that are plain wrong can be isolating, painful and maddening. The first thing to do when you are confronted by any of these is to do nothing.
You do not have to immediately oppose or agree with them, give yourself time to more clearly understand the feedback.
Most feedback arrives in the form of a vague label: 'You need to step it up,' 'Show more leadership,' 'Think more strategically,' or 'Be more creative.' It’s easy to jump to what these labels mean to us, and assume we know what they mean to the feedback giver. Yet these labels are — at best — loose approximations of what they are trying to say.
The feedback that we receive always has a past and a future. May be the boss is trying to describe a set of observations before the comment was made or it may be because of the improvement that s/he is expecting in the upcoming days.
You have to understand what the feedback was about and get it cleared immediately.
You can ask your boss what s/he exactly meant, be a bit more specific about particular instances where s/he felt the work was lagging and finally what s/he wants to change in the future.
Sometimes feedback may not feel true to us because we are not aware of it. Ask them what's wrong and what might be right to get a clear idea of what you might be missing.
After getting such comments we usually vent them out to colleagues who would instantly join us in blaming the boss. However, you have to ask the co-worker if there is something true with the feedback.
Eventhough there might be 90 per cent wrong in the feedback there is the remaining 10 per cent which is a scope of improvement.
Receiving feedback well doesn’t mean you have to take the feedback. Being good at receiving feedback means just that: that you receive it. That you hear it. That you work to understand it. That you share your perspective on it. That you reflect on it. That you sit with it. Then you decide on whether to act on it or not.
Most important of all: Tell your feedback giver that you have taken their input seriously which will strengthen the relationship even if you ultimately go in a different direction.
Courtesy:www.hbr.org
