Everybody likes getting praised, but there may come a time when your manager has some thoughts they’d like to share with you. Some … not-so-complimentary thoughts. In these moments, how equipped are you to handle their feedback?
For most people, negative or “constructive” feedback is highly stressful. But it’s also crucial for preventing future mistakes, improving in our roles, and advancing in our careers. The key is having tools for receiving negative feedback so that you can keep performing at a high level.
Brain science offers some clarity around what makes feedback so stressful, as well as what we can do in the moment to quiet our minds and focus on what we need to do to get back on track — a topic we wrote about recently in Fast Company.
Why feedback is so hard to hear
Whenever we’re told some bad news about our performance, it’s easy for our minds to run away with negative thoughts. Maybe we feel shame, guilt, or both. In this headspace, it’s extremely difficult to form clear thoughts.
This is a kind of threat state. Our brain senses danger and diverts resources away from complex cognition so that it can resolve the threat. In this way, threat and cognition work like a seesaw: As one goes up, the other goes down.
The longer we stay in this threat state, the less we’re able to perform a crucial action known as mental contrasting. This practice, which helps us make sense of the feedback, involves juxtaposing the present with a more desirable future in which we’ve taken the feedback to heart and are doing things differently. Often, it’s through this mental contrasting that we’re able to see the error of our ways and envision a new and better way of working.
However, knowing why our brain feels on fire isn’t enough. We still need specific tools to extinguish the flames.
3 strategies for hearing the feedback
Threats come in three flavors: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Level 1 threats are the mildest and can actually be productive, while Level 3 threats are calamitous. No good comes from Level 3 threats.
If you’ve just received negative feedback, before you go any further, establish which threat level you’re experiencing. If it feels mild, proceed to the next step. But if it feels distracting, or worse, debilitating, try a biological intervention like taking a walk, meditating, or eating a snack.
Once you’re in a calmer state, you’ll probably still feel uneasy about the feedback. Here, try a practice called labeling. Describe the emotions you’re feeling. Just this practice alone has been shown to quiet negative feelings because a feeling we can name is one we can tame.
If you still feel on edge, take things a step further and engage in reappraisal. This is an active process in which you consciously reframe a negative situation in more positive terms. It’s not just finding a silver lining in the rain cloud; it’s telling yourself an entirely new story that’s more helpful than the initial one.
For example, if a manager gives you feedback that you talk over others in meetings, you might reappraise your fears of being bossy or controlling as simply a sign that you’re engaged in the work (even if you could afford to let others have the floor more often). You may also see the feedback as an opportunity to practice humility by recognizing you may not always have the right answers.
By understanding how threat works in the brain and using the above strategies to quiet a threatened mind, each of us can use feedback to improve more quickly and continue growing in all aspects of our careers.
A version of this article appears in Fast Company. To read the full article, click here.
