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When you work in a managerial position, providing constructive criticism to your employees becomes a part of your job role. When you talk about criticism, various kinds of criticism are there, but it has something that positively changes your professional and personal life. It helps you to perform better and promote growth to build your position in any organization.
However, to provide a healthy criticism, you should know the right way. There is a right approach that you should follow while giving healthy criticism in your workplace. Here in this article, we will share with you the tips to give professional criticism and how you can handle this.
What is constructive criticism?
No one is perfect, whether it comes to professional life or personal life. There is no such age of learning and adapting good things, right? So, why don’t you start now? When it comes to criticism, then we all have misconceptions in our minds.
Most of us think that criticism is bad and it can destroy someone’s life. But what if it changes your life and brings you in a positive direction. Constructive criticism is one of them that helps you to deal with the negativities and helps you to take a positive approach.
When it comes to the workplace, you have to work in a team built with so many people, starting from managers to your coworkers. You can’t make everyone happy, and that’s not your job role. But dealing with your negativities should be there on your bucket list. It helps you to maintain healthy professional relationships.
Sometimes, your manager or coworkers might tell you that you are working very slow or can’t catch the stuff quickly. At that initial time, you may feel angry and embarrassed. But later, you can understand the reason behind this. Giving someone criticism always makes you proud, but no one likes it when it comes to taking.
You are not alone. Every one of us has received this criticism once in our professional life. So, there are no reasons to struggle with them because you can go completely over them.
Quarreling with the person who criticized us is not a professional way to deal with this, and it never helps us change and improve our lives. So, in the below section, we will learn how criticism helps you identify your weakness and grab the positivity.
Is it helpful for us?
So, constructive criticism is basically different from other criticism that makes you productive and positive direction. It doesn’t make you hostile but makes you a responsible person. When you know the right approach to deliver and receive it, it will look positive to you.
Through this, you can share your feedback to someone in your workplace, not only their bad but also good things.
Instead of providing general advice, you can share the ways to make positive improvements.
Through this, you can address anything like someone’s interpersonal activities, thinking power, level of catching things, and leadership, decision-making skills.
It is quite normal in the workplace that helps coworkers and employees improve productivity and reach their goals. It can make a positive surrounding in the workplace where you can ask anything to your colleagues comfortably and request assistance.
Ways to give constructive criticism to someone
Here are some ways to share constructive criticism for someone and not make them feel bad:
Utilize the praising method
In this method, you have to focus on providing healthy professional criticism starting with some positive and praising words. It feels more balanced and doesn’t make anyone feel the embrace. In this method, you have to start your feedback with something that the employee has done well before and then share the areas where they can improve; for this, try to talk with the person privately and then start the conversation with the praising thankful words.
Example
“I really appreciate how good you are at delivering the projects that are assigned to you. You efficiently handle multiple responsibilities simultaneously without any complaints. However, I think you could use your skills in the other areas too. You are doing your projects really well, but it would be beneficial if you could submit on time. Overall, you are doing great and thanks for being a part of us!”
“I” language strategy
While starting your words, it would really sound good when you start your words with “I.” When you start your phrase with “I” like “I think,” “I appreciate,” “I feel,” and so on, then it sounds better. It sounds like personalized feedback rather than targeting one.
It also reflects that what you will say is of your own thinking and views according to a situation. Through this, you can reduce the misconceptions that are happening most of the time in these cases. So, make sure that without criticizing someone in a bad way, make it a healthy and professional conversation.
Example
“I loved the design of the website you submitted today morning, but I felt like it could be better if you add a vibrant color combination.”
Pinpoint the behavior
When you give constructive criticism to anyone, please focus on the specific scenario or action they recently made. Avoid saying something they have done months before because it sounds like you target someone and count their negativities. So, without covering the unnecessary things, make sure you have started your conversation on the topic. Don’t go off topic and waste your time.
So, while focusing on something you want to improve on their personality, try using non-specific language. Like you can say “The performance,” “The project” rather than “Your performance,” & “Your project.”
Example
“You did a very good job in the last project. I didn’t expect this much good from you, but you make me wrong, and for that, I am proud of you! However, you could make it a little more impressive as you have the caliber.”
Always include praising words
As we mentioned earlier, always add the praising phrase in your sentence. It would help if you started giving feedback by praising their performance, productivity, and abilities. Through this, you can remember and be aware of their responsibilities and duties. In this way, they feel more important and try to improve more to grab the position they wanted for so long.
Example
“The presentation you submitted yesterday was insightful and well-constructed. Although I felt it could be more promising and look more impressive if you added the major points in a more unique and impressively.”
Give actionable feedback
Criticism will not sound constructive until you add some actionable feedback. Like you always have to say on which area and on which field you expect improvement from the person. Make sure to discuss with them and share where he could work more to fulfill the strategies and improve. However, you can also make a spreadsheet where you can outline the urgent task, and it’s the employer’s responsibility to reach them and meet your expectations.
Example
“Although the project that you have assigned is going forward, you seem to be struggling with the tasks because of so much pressure. Therefore, I am sending you a spreadsheet to outline your works and reach to them one by one.
Choose the right time and place
Feedback is only sounded good when it is given immediately after the completion of work. However, you should make sure that the receiver should take this criticism in a friendly and healthy way.
If you are frustrated and upset about anything, take your time, calm down, and share your words. But for that, you should also decide on a specific time and location. You can’t give criticism to anyone in front of the public. You can decide a time and ask for a meeting.
Understand the viewpoint
When you give constructive criticism to someone, you should listen to the condition of that person too. You should listen to them and understand their viewpoints. Find out their opinion of them about the given task and express the views of yours too. In this way, you can prevent misconceptions.
How to go through constructive criticism?
Receiving healthy professional criticism can be more difficult when you have don’t know about the below-discussed tips. It would help if you dealt with the criticism in a positive reaction.
Stop making any initial reaction
Whenever you feel that you have gone through so many healthy professional criticisms, the first thing you have to do is stop making any initial reaction. Calm down and avoid reacting at that time. Tempering can cause things that you don’t want to do. It can also make a negative impression on you in the professional environment. So, stop making any sudden reactions and take your time.
Remember the benefits
When you go through healthy professional criticism, you should remember its benefits rather than losing your hope. This criticism comes to you by bringing all the positive changes you should grab to be a responsible employee. It not only improves your skills and productivity in the professional space but in your personal life too.
Listen and understand
While receiving healthy professional criticism, you should be listening obediently. You should listen to them and understand them before pointing out your opinion. It would help if you defended yourself by using valid points. While defending yourself, you should be more confident and don’t use any unnecessary words. Share your point of view to be on the topic.
Close the conversation with thank you
Closing a conversation by saying thank you sounds polite and professional too. You should look at them and thank them for sharing their valuable words to improve your performance.
You can say that “I will try to improve myself in these areas so that I can meet your expectations.” You can also say,” I appreciate your reviews and thank you that you are talking with me and giving your valuable time to help me.” In this way, you look more professional and firm.
Ask questions
If you have any doubt, then you can ask questions to them. To be a professional and counted in the goodies book of your employer, you don’t need to follow every point. You can ask cross-questions if you have any issues.
You can also discuss the solutions by asking them the ideas to improve that. After asking all your doubts, you can professionally close the conversation and get out from them in a professional way. You can thank them and end the meeting with a professional note.
By following the above rules, you can take healthy professional criticism in a healthy and good way. In this way, you can prevent any professional rivalry too. Here we suggest some more examples of healthy professional criticism that you can make to anyone.
Constructive criticism in the workplace
Here are some health constructive criticism examples at workplace:
Example of criticism for a coworker
I think that the project is excellent. You have added all the major and strong points to impress the audience. But in few parts, I noticed that you add some minor points that people already knew, and it looks repetitive somewhere. You could improve this to make it more reachable by improving the quality. Otherwise, it is good.
Example of criticism for boss
I really appreciate the way you trust me and my skills. You helped me a lot in the initial days of my career. I really felt proud when you assigned me this project, but it would help me provide some more time to complete this. I am a part of some other ongoing projects, and it’s hard to use my time effectively. So, can you please give me some more time to?
Final thoughts
Overall, we can say that constructive criticism is important in any workplace. It helps to achieve new goals and do something unique. But before making any statement and criticism, you should know the idea of approaching in the right way.
Through this article, you might have an idea on how to deliver and receive healthy professional criticism. If you want to play a blame game or a victim card, this is not for you. But if you want to be an important asset of your company, then this article is only for you!
