How to give negative feedback: Provide helpful advice without being an asshole

6 September 2022

So, you want to help someone without coming across as a condescending asshole? Do you want to make a positive impact, but you don’t want to be perceived as pushy, preachy and know-it-all? The way you present yourself is more important than the content of your advice.

You see people you care about make mistake after mistake (in your opinion). You want to help them, or at least give them an option to consider, but you don’t know how. Are they in a toxic relationship, and you calling it out would help them act? Are they performing their exercises wrong, and you pointing it out could save them from injury and inefficient workouts? Are they working hard instead of smart at their job, and you giving them some advice would empower them to make better life choices? Are they being a pushover in their personal and professional lives, and you helping them out would develop their self-empowerment and sense of self-worth?

Providing negative feedback to someone, with the best of intentions in mind, is one of the greatest things you can do. It means you care more about their wellbeing than you care about their opinion of you. This is because you are willing to risk losing your good standing with them by calling out something you think they are doing wrong. It means that you commit to being truthful to them, even when the truth hurts; and this is what true friendship is about.

However, if they misinterpret you as being abusive and negative with your pointing out of their mistakes, you incentivize them to want to stay away from you, and to become defensive, closed to any external input. This way, they reject your feedback and advice, which could have otherwise helped them improve.

To successfully give negative feedback to someone, it must first be solicited. If they didn’t ask for or they don’t expect your feedback about something, or your relationship is such that your advice isn’t really welcome, then maybe you need to accept that it is not your place to say anything.

However, if you think they would truly need to consider some advice, then you can risk talking to them. First, though, you need to acknowledge that it is not your place to give them advice, and that you recognize they didn’t ask for advice. You also add that you’d like to give them your opinion, if they would have it, and that it’s only an opinion, since you could be wrong. By acknowledging your faults, you open them up to you, because you present yourself as humble, and not entitled to giving advice from your high horse. You also show that you don’t expect them to follow your advice; only to consider it. Because you show humility, they are less likely to feel pressured by your feedback, and you are less likely to come across as an arrogant condescending prick who feels superior enough to command others how to live their lives.

After you’ve acknowledged that you have no right to give unsolicited advice, and that you simply offer a mere opinion with your audacious humility, you are ready to follow a three-step process of providing negative feedback:

Step 1: comment on what they are doing right, what you like about them, and what is good about them in the area in which you’re about to give feedback. This is important to open them up to receiving negative feedback, since they now feel valued and encouraged.

Step 2: Point out what they could be doing better and what could be improved, not what is wrong. The way you frame this is important, because you are not telling them what they are doing wrong, as if you’re abusing them with negative insults. You are instead giving them a positive message of what is within their power to improve.

Step 3: Provide a road map of specific strategies and actions to make that improvement. If you provide any negative feedback without a suggestion on how to solve it, you appear clueless, random and unreliable. Your feedback is then less likely to be received by them positively. It is not only enough to point out what they can improve; you need to show them how. Also, by giving them ways to improve, you demonstrate that you truly do have good intentions towards them, and you’re not there only to tell them what they’re doing wrong. Telling them specifically how to improve is an act of encouragement, positivity and emotional support, even if they decide not to act on your advice.

And this is how you provide negative feedback and advice in a way that maximizes your chances of being listened to, and minimizes your risk of being perceived as abusive.

“Don’t find a fault; find a remedy.” - Henry Ford

References:
Every descent sport science and motivation psychology book out there.