Learn How to Give a Negative Feedback

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Giving negative feedback is often one of the toughest jobs ever. The problem with negative feedback is that nobody likes it. As negative feedback targets only undesired behavior in an individual, the person thinks of it as hurting his ego.

This is why the skill of giving negative feedback and yet not hurting the person concerned has become of utmost importance. Especially for managers, the art is more important as they cannot risk making the employees unhappy with negative feedback as productivity might get hampered, instead of improving. Thus one needs to be tactical while using negative feedback. Here are some tips on how to give a negative feedback.

Do not only give negative feedback. A person cannot only have negative qualities. First praise the good qualities of the person before moving on to the negative feedback. Secondly be specific about what exactly is the problem rather than telling things about his/her character. Be sincere in your approach when you are giving feedback and do not try to prove your own superiority.

Be constructive while giving negative feedback and do not make the person feel small in the eyes of others by giving the negative feedback in the presence of other people. Also, you need to act swiftly and do not make the situation go out of hand before taking any action. If you find a problem, tell it at the beginning rather than wait for the problem to become worse.

Another very important aspect to keep in mind is that you need to be consistent in your approach. If you deal with two people differently and criticize one while leaving out another, then problems might arise.

So in the end, giving a negative feedback is an art. It is an art which is mastered and comes through knowing and by following some standard principles. Make the person receiving the negative feedback stay focused in his/her goal. Making the person feel hurt would never help the cause. It would only make either that person dejected or make him/her less focused in the goal rather than make him/her more focused. Giving negative feedback can be difficult and tough, but with the tips mentioned here, one can easily approach things in the right way and negative feedback would prove to be constructive feedback.