如何面对工作中的批评意见

    亲爱的安妮：我刚刚结束在这家公司的第三次年终绩效评估，这是我大学毕业之后的第一份“正式工作”。与过去两年一样，连我本人都对自己的反应感到震惊。我知道不能认为这种批评是专门针对我的，或者产生抵触心理，但有时候，当老板告诉我需要在哪些方面有所改善的时候，我会变得意气用事，有点惊慌失措。

    今年的情况更糟糕，虽然评估结果有85%是正面的。老板说我有一个方面可以变得更好，但他还没有说完，我就开始为自己辩解。我应该如何让自己不再因为批评意见而感到不安。您有什么建议吗？去年整个节日期间，我便因为这种事情而十分烦恼。今年，我不想再经历这样的痛苦。——T.T.S.

    亲爱的T.T.S.：相信我，许多人在绩效评估结束之后，都会产生法语所称的“楼梯智慧”(l’esprit de l’escalier)，也就是说，当你想到本应该说什么，或者本不该说什么的时候，却为时已晚。有此经历的人绝不止你一个。

    真的为时已晚了吗？

    如果你确实想要另外一次机会，让老板说完他想说的话，并以不同的方式进行回应，为什么不请求重来一次呢？

    高管培训机构布莱特公司（Bright Enterprises）负责人黛比•布莱特强调称：“你甚至可以在一开始便解释清楚，这一次，你会耐心倾听，不说话。”布莱特公司的客户包括迪士尼（Disney）、通用电气（GE）、摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）和万豪国际集团（Marriott）等。此外，布莱特用七年时间研究了人们如何应对反馈，尤其是在面临压力的情况下应对反馈的方式，并以此为依据写了一本书——《真话不一定伤人：如何用批评增强关系、提高绩效和推动改变》（The Truth Doesn’t Have to Hurt: How to Use Criticism to Strengthen Relationships, Improve Performance, and Promote Change）。她说道，请求进行另外一次会面，“可以向你的老板表明，你愿意接受他想要告诉你的建议。”

    这很重要，因为在布莱克看来，任何人在接受评估的时候，首先要让提供评估的人感到舒适。听起来很意外吗？布莱特说道：“仔细想想，大多数管理者都讨厌提供绩效评估，因为他们也很担心其他人会如何回应负面评价。所以，他们倾向于快速完成讨论，赶紧走人。”

    当然，问题在于老板急于想结束绩效评估，便可能会略过一些事关你职业成败的信息。布莱特说道：“你在绩效评估中能够学到的东西，可能对你很有必要，不仅对现在，对你的未来或许同样重要。”布莱特在咨询工作当中，经常被邀请为一些才华横溢的管理者提供咨询，这些管理者的职业发展遇到了障碍，而原因则是一连串老板们曾经无数次警告过，但他们却一直没有改正的缺点和坏习惯。

    那么，在倾听的时候如何控制自己的情绪？专心思考如何让老板感到放松，是个不错的开始，因为你可以自动转移对情绪的关注。然后，布莱特建议：“提醒自己，你是场面的掌控者。你如何应对，将决定讨论如何进行，以及你能从讨论中获得多大的收获。”如果你能认识到，即便自己不发一言，你也并非在扮演被动的角色，那么，你所提到的那种恐慌感便会减少甚至消失。

    接下来，将注意力集中于自己需要采取的（或停止采取的）措施上。布莱特建议：“要确定自己清楚事实和意见之间的区别。‘你在某某项目上超出了预算30,000美元’是事实。‘你与同事的沟通不太理想’则是意见。”由于大多数老板几乎没有接受过如何提供有效反馈的培训，因此这两类反馈可能会被混为一谈，但意见往往是模糊不清的，因此通常易于分辨。

    布莱特说道：“试图猜测老板想要什么是不可能成功的。人们最后往往都会猜错，而在下一次绩效评估的时候，他们又会得到另外一个模糊不清的批评意见，久而久之，他们会认为自己永远也无法让老板高兴。”

    相反，员工可以询问能够解决问题的具体措施。布莱特说道：“例如，你可以建议从‘与同事更好的沟通’开始，比如通过每周面对面的交流，而不是偶然的电子邮件。”要像解决工作中的其他任务一样解决自己的问题，提出一两条实际的解决方案，这样可以帮助你控制大部分情绪。

    既然你提到这是你在大学毕业后的第一份“正式工作”，你肯定还要继续在职场打拼四五十年时间。所以，有远见对你将很有帮助。布莱特说道：“人们之所以对不甚满意的绩效评估感到生气，是因为他们认为这会影响他们的整个职业生涯。但实际上这只不过是对一年表现的一次绩效评估而已，公司的目标和战略每年都会变化。我从未见过在10次或20次‘超出预期’的评估结果中有一两次‘达到预期’的评价，产生过任何长远的影响。”

    此外，即便是总裁、权威和CEO们，在日常工作中有时也会收到批评意见。布莱特认为：“一个人的职业生涯当中不可能只听到好的反馈。事实上，如果你从未听到过任何建设性的批评意见，这或许意味着你没有学到任何东西。”（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Dear Annie:I just came from my third year-end performance evaluation with this company, where I’m in my first “real job” since college. And once again, just like in the past two years, I’m appalled at the way I reacted. I know you’re not supposed to take criticism personally or get defensive, but somehow, when my boss starts telling me about areas I could develop or improve, my emotions take over and I sort of panic.

    This year was the worst so far, even though the evaluation was about 85% positive. My boss brought up one thing he thinks I could get better at, and I started defending myself before he even finished talking. Can you suggest any ways to stop letting criticism upset me so much? Last year I spent the holidays stewing over this, and I don’t want to do that again. —Too Thin-Skinned

    Dear T.T.S.:Believe me, you’re far from the only one who’s ever left a performance appraisal with a bad case of what the French calll’esprit de l’escalier— that is, thinking of what you should have said (or not said) when it’s obviously too late.

    Or is it?

    If you really want another chance to let your boss finish what he meant to say, and to respond in a different way this time, why not ask for a do-over?

    “You could even explain at the outset that, this time, you intend to listen and not speak,” notes Deb Bright, head of executive coaching firm Bright Enterprises, which counts Disney, GE, Morgan Stanley, and Marriott among its clients. Bright also wrote a book,The Truth Doesn’t Have to Hurt: How to Use Criticism to Strengthen Relationships, ImprovePerformance,and Promote Change, based on a seven-year study of how people respond to feedback, especially when they’re under stress. Asking for another meeting, she says, “would show him that you want to be receptive to what he wants to tell you.”

    That’s important because, in Bright’s view, the first job of anyone on the receiving end of an evaluation is to make the person who is giving it feel comfortable. Surprised? “Think about it,” says Bright. “Most managers hate giving performance appraisals, because they dread how someone is going to react to anything negative. So they tend to rush through the discussion just to get it over with.”

    The trouble, of course, is that the boss may be in such a hurry that he or she skips over information that could make or break your career. “What you can learn in a performance appraisal are things you may need, not just right now, but later on,” notes Bright. In her consulting work, she has often been called in to counsel talented managers whose careers had hit a brick wall because of shortcomings and bad habits that a string of bosses had tried to warn them about for years.

    So how do you get a grip on your emotions while you’re listening? Focusing on making your boss feel at ease is a good start, since it automatically shifts your attention away from your emotions. Then, says Bright, “Remind yourself that you are the one in control here. How you respond will determine how the discussion goes, and how much or little you get out of it.” The sense of panic you mention could be diminished, or dispelled, if you recognize that even if you’re not saying a word, your role here isn’t a passive one.

    Next, concentrate on finding out what specific actions you need to take (or stop taking). “Make sure you know the difference between a fact and an opinion,” Bright suggests. “’You were $30,000 over budget on the XYZ project’ is a fact. ‘You don’t communicate well enough with your peers’ is an opinion.” Since most bosses have had little, if any, training in giving effective feedback, the two types of feedback may very well be tangled up together, but you can usually tell an opinion by how vague it is.

    “Trying to guess what your boss wants won’t work,” says Bright. “People end up guessing wrong, and then they get another vague, critical opinion in their next review, and conclude that they can never please this boss.”

    Instead, ask for particular steps that would solve the perceived problem. “For example, you might suggest starting to ‘communicate better with your peers’ by updating them in person every week instead of through an occasional email,” says Bright. Approaching this like any other task you do at work, by coming up with a practical fix or two, should help take most of the emotion out of it.

    Since you mention that this is your first “real job” after college, you probably have four or five decades of work ahead of you. So it might help to keep a sense of perspective. “People often get upset about a so-so performance review because they think it will damage their whole career,” says Bright. “But it’s just one review, in one year, and companies’ goals and strategies change from one year to the next anyway. I’ve never seen a situation where one or two ‘meets expectations’ evaluations — out of, say, 10 or 20 ‘exceeds expectations’ — made any real difference in the long run.”

    Moreover, even presidents, popes, and CEOs get harpooned, sometimes on a daily basis. “No one goes through a whole career hearing only great feedback,” Bright observes. “In fact, if you haven’t heard any constructive criticism lately, it means you probably aren’t learning anything.”