What Determines the Negative Feedback to Be Motivating? | Episode 024           One of the primary motivators of the people in the teams is getting positive feedback. The main demotivator is getting negative feedback. Sometimes, receiving negative feedback can have a strong motivating effect.         The real question here is: What determines if negative feedback is motivating?         Negative feedback is in abundance during change, from clients, colleagues, other managers, etc. So, if managers support their people to use it as a motivator instead of a demotivator, it can significantly affect people's work - both emotionally and rationally.          Some people say that negative feedback can positively affect them if it is given in the right way - well-intentioned, balanced, on time, etc. Others say that any negative feedback has a highly motivating effect if it is provided by a professional or a respected person. Here I think of Dr. House. He almost always points out the poor performance of the people in his team. To this, he adds outright insults, garnished with sarcasm. Despite the constant bombardment of other doctors with negative feedback, Dr. House has a kind of charisma that attracts and keeps people around him. He doesn't keep them until they retire, but he keeps them anyway. It turns out that if people work with a person they respect for their outstanding technical expertise, receiving negative feedback from that expert can be motivating.         In the above two examples, people accept negative feedback as motivating if something from the external environment meets their previous expectations. Here, the feedback is adequately provided, or a respected expert gives it. However, this attitude puts people at a significant disadvantage. One in which they depend on someone else to motivate them. It's like outsourcing your motivation to a third party. Such a party that probably does not care whether or not you are inspired at your work.         Let's return to the source of motivation where it belongs from the very beginning - in the person himself. Not in someone else's expertise. Not in other people's skills for giving feedback. Only in the person himself.         Now, the crucial question becomes a little more guiding. It is:   What in each person turns negative feedback into motivating?         Before you continue reading, take some time to answer this question for yourself.What makes negative feedback motivating is the way one looks at it. Does he see it as external advice on how to improve his work? Or he sees it as an accusation that he is not doing well and is not up for the job. Of course, if it is the first way, things are not taken personally, and one can become even better at what one does. If we look at the feedback in the second way, then any negative feedback will be a reason for self-doubt and excuses.          Here, the good thing is that how a person looks at feedback does not depend on someone else, but only on the person himself. But to look at it requires, first, parking the ego. Then the desire for development. Then, the desire for actual change. Nothing more.         Here is an exercise you can do to accept negative feedback in a motivating way over time. Get negative feedback that applies to your colleagues, regardless if the feedback is written or oral. Take this feedback, which applies to another person, and see which part of it might be valid for you. You know very well that this feedback is not for you. But if you recognize something that may apply to you, it may be an idea for your improvement.         To make the exercise even more interesting, you can get your team together and have everyone give negative feedback to a random colleague on one sheet of paper. Then take all the sheets and shuffle them without seeing their contents. Then, let each person get a sheet of paper that does not apply to him but read it as if it were written just for him. This exercise will help people not to take the negative feedback too personally. But to accept it with desire and willingness to change.          1) Which negative feedback you give to your colleagues is also valid for you?          2) What will change in your daily work if you apply the negative feedback you give others to yourself?---Book "Cold Shower for Managers: Empower and Inspire Your Team with Your Humility and Accountability by Plamen Petrov on Amazon - https://amzn.to/2Ka23CU---Book "Park Your Ego: Face Your Bullsh*t and Own It" by Plamen Petrov on Amazon - https://amzn.to/38VW3He