![Polonius's Charge to Laertes, color wood engraving by Bernard Brussel-Smith (1914-1989) Polonius's Charge to Laertes, color wood engraving by Bernard Brussel-Smith (1914-1989)](../images/polonius-laertes.png)
Polonius's Charge to Laertes, color wood engraving by Bernard Brussel-Smith (1914-1989). In Act I, Scene 3, of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Polonius, a courtier, dispenses some wisdom to his son. It is here that we find the now-famous lines, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be," "But not express'd in fancy, rich, not gaudy,/For the apparel oft proclaims the man," and "To thine own self be true." Photo courtesy U.S. Library of Congress.
Some call it "feedback." Some call it "criticism." Some try to distinguish the two, with varying degrees of success, but that's a topic for another time. By whatever name, we usually deliver the message with good intentions. When the intentions are good, but the results aren't, receivers are hurt, and givers surprised. To guard against this possibility, people have developed a number of introductory safety phrases.
One safety phrase is, "I'd like to give you some constructive criticism." It's almost an incantation — the magic words that are supposed to protect us from hurt or hurting others. But safety phrases, like incantations, don't always work as intended.
To achieve a positive outcome, givers need more than safety phrases — empathy is essential. To help givers of feedback or criticism understand the receiver's experience, I offer this framework for thinking about the entire process. By examining criticism from four perspectives — giver, receiver, content, and setting — we can develop guidelines for making criticism more effective. Here is Part I of those guidelines, emphasizing the giver and receiver.
- Investigate thoroughly and without bias
- It's just possible that the giver lacks access to important information that renders the criticism irrelevant, wrong, or worse. Delivering criticism that's clearly mistaken damages the giver's credibility. More important, it can damage the relationship between giver and receiver, perhaps permanently.
- The basis of any criticism must be thorough investigation. Sometimes, thoroughness requires the receiver's active participation. And sometimes, because people tend to adjust their responses based on the identity of the investigator, an unbiased investigation is possible only if performed by someone other than the giver.
- "To thine own self be true"
- If the giver's behavior or Criticizing the actions of someone
else, while you continue to do
similar things regularly yourself,
will likely contribute to
hostility in the relationshipbeliefs are similar to those the giver is criticizing, the receiver might feel anger, outrage, or pain, even if the giver's message is valid. Hostile feelings follow, in part, because criticism carries an implicit message that the giver isn't subject to similar criticism. - Criticizing the actions of someone else, while you continue to do similar things regularly yourself, will likely contribute to hostility in the relationship.
- Seek permission freely given
- If the receiver hasn't freely given the giver explicit or implicit permission to deliver criticism, then feelings of being attacked are likely. Even when permission has been given, the feeling of being attacked can come about if the permission wasn't given freely. For instance, accepting periodic performance reviews is actually a requirement of many jobs. The feeling of powerlessness in performance reviews comes about, in part, because performance reviews are mandatory.
- Delivering criticism without first gaining permission is unlikely to have a positive effect. Permission given under threat of employment termination, which is the context of most performance reviews, is not permission freely given. Permission sought and obtained in a public setting, where declining to give permission can be embarrassing or costly, probably is not permission freely given.
In Part II, we'll examine guidelines that arise from considering content and setting. Next issue in this series
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Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Conflict Management:
- Conflict Haiku
- When tempers flare, or tension fills the air, many of us contribute to the stew, often without realizing
that we do. Here are some haiku that describe some of the many stances we choose that can lead groups
into tangles, or let those tangles persist once they form.
Impasses in Group Decision Making: I
- Groups sometimes find that although they cannot agree on the issue at hand in its entirety, they can
agree on some parts of it. Yet, they remain stuck, unable to reach a narrow agreement before moving
on to the more thorny areas. Why does this happen?
Compulsive Talkers at Work: Addiction
- Incessant, unending talking about things that the listener doesn't care about, already knows about,
or can do nothing about is an irritating behavior that harms both talker and listener. What can we do
about this?
Patterns of Conflict Escalation: II
- When simple workplace disagreements evolve into workplace warfare, they often do so following recognizable
patterns. If we can recognize the patterns early, we can intervene to prevent serious damage to relationships.
Here's Part II of a catalog of some of those patterns.
Managing Dissent Risk
- In group decision making, dissent risk is the risk that dissents about important decisions will be rejected
without due consideration. As a result, group decision quality can suffer, and some groups will actually
eject dissenters. How can we manage dissent risk?
See also Conflict Management and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
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And on July 10: On Delegating Accountability: I
- As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.
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