Study This is why negative feedback so often backfires and how to do better

Study This is why negative feedback so often backfires and how to do betterStudy This is why negative feedback so often backfires - and how to do betterWhen you give your coworkers some tough but necessary feedback on their performance, you want them to learn and improve from it.But new research from Harvard Business School found that instead of confronting the hard truths contained within negative feedback were much more likely to cut off our relationships with the negative feedback giver.In an analysis of 300 employees peer-review processes, researchers Paul Green and his colleagues found that employees would avoid the coworkers who gave the negative feedback and would seek more positive reviews from new work relationships.Running from the painIn one experiment, the researchers told participants that they were getting negative feedback from a work partner about a story they had written. The participants who got the bad feedback were more likely to choose a new work partner for th e next task than the participants who got self-confirming feedback.Theres an assumption that what motivates people to improve is the realization that theyre not as good as they think they are, Green writes. But in fact, it just makes them go find people who will not shine that light on them.Seeking out affirmationThe researchers found that when the feedback giver and recipient still had to work together, the recipient would seek out new people in different departments at work to offset the bad feedback they had heard. The researchers called this shopping for confirmation, or the search for a positive view of ones self when our world get threatened by the idea that were not as valuable as we want to think we are.How to get better at hearing (or giving) criticismBut this psychological defense mechanism can be unlearned. Green and his colleagues found that when employees were reminded of their value before they had to hear negative feedback, they stopped shopping for confirmation. Like wise, when recipients of bad feedback were given 10 minutes to write about the values that mattered to them, they did not seek out self-confirming feedback.Greens research shows us how one bad critique can rattle us. When someone at work tells us something about ourselves that we dont want to hear, were not inclined to listen. For us to listen to hard truths, we have to feel stahlkammer enough to hear them.The lesson for managers and employees is to remind employees of their value within the workplace before we give them the bad news.More from LaddersThese companies let employees work from the comfort of their homesThese are the 15 highest-paying jobs in the nation, LinkedIn foundWatch out for this disturbing new trend in job interviews