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When to Give Someone Critical Feedback


When it comes to giving feedback , I think that most of us are very afraid. We are afraid that the person to whom we are giving the feedback might not take it in the right way and could lead to a conflict. Sometimes, we feel that giving feedback to this person about their behavior is futile , because this person does not have the capability to understand it and hence it is useless.Sometimes we are lazy and just don’t take the time and effort to give a person feedback on their
behavior. This could apply in many situations in your personal and professional life. Whether you are a parent dealing with a teenager or a boss dealing with an employee, or a teacher dealing with a
student. The principles that are mentioned here can be applied to all walks of life. Listed below are the steps that you can follow to determine in a compassionate way if a certain person deserves your feedback or not.

 Step 1 : All compassionate communication starts with examination. The first step in determining whether a person deserves your feedback is to examine your own intentions very carefully and thoroughly. Is your intention to provide this feedback a good one? What I mean by that is, is your intention in providing this feedback positive or negative. Examples of positive intentions are – genuine interest in the person’s welfare, Wanting this person to improve themselves in some way that is beneficial to them. Examples of negative intentions are showing off, doing it with an intention of ill will , doing it with the intention of greed, doing it with the intention of putting the other person down so that you can feel good about yourself by comparison. Paying attention to your intention right at the start is extremely important. Obviously, if you suspect that your intentions are coming from a negative place, you should not give the person any feedback at all. If you feel that your intentions are positive you can proceed to step 2.

Step 2 : Now that you have examined your intention and found it to be positive you need to examine other important factors that play a role in the process . They are :
– How firmly is this person attached to their view about the feedback topic?
– How often does this person give in to anger and resentment when provided with criticism?
– How hurt will this person be upon receiving my feedback ?
– How much trouble will I have to endure in order to give this feedback?
– Will my feedback have the power to raise him from doing something harmful to himself and others?

Your answers to the questions above will determine whether or not you should provide feedback to this person. These are the following situations that could arise :

Scenario 1 : The person is not firmly attached and does not give in to anger and resentment . You will not be troubled or annoyed by giving this feedback and you firmly believe that your feedback will benefit this person : GO ahead and give them the feedback. Obviously this is the best case scenario.

Scenario 2 : The person is firmly attached to their views and you know that they might react with anger to your feedback and cause you annoyance. However you firmly believe that the feedback will benefit them. It is difficult because it requires more of your mental energy effort and time to give such feedback. This is particularly true for educators and parents dealing with teenagers.However the most compassionate thing to do here is to give them the feedback. It is important to note however that the benefit that is gained from the feedback should be more than the annoyance it causes.

Scenario 3: The person is firmly attached to their views and you know that they will react with extreme anger to your feedback .They might even harm you seriously. It will cause you and the other person great hurt. The person is in such a mental state that they will not be able to benefit from the feedback. In this situation you should not give the feedback. Instead learn to develop equanimity towards the person. The reason you wanted to give them feedback because their actions caused you annoyance or harm. Or you see that they are destroying themselves and causing harm to others. However, if they are not in a mental or ready state to take it , it is of no use. You need to work on developing equanimity towards their actions. In case you find yourself in a situation where you cannot handle it positively , you need to extricate yourself from that situation , until a point where you have developed the inner resources that will help you to deal with that situation positively.

We hope that this article will help you to deal with such difficult situations better in your life. Stay tuned for more on compassionate communication right here !

Sources :
Bodhi, B. English translation of MN 103, “What do you think about me?” Retrieved February 7, 2017, from https://suttacentral.net/en/mn103

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