Responding to fair but badly delivered criticism

[darerowow]

I got promoted at work last year, in a heavily male dominated industry.

There was a lot of resentment from the guys but I got promoted because I’m the hardest working one on the team.

The promotion includes running a client facing conference type event every other week, as that’s quite a prestigious thing at my company and very sought after.

Just before the last conference, I had a call to say my son had been sick at school. I hurriedly arranged my mum to pick him up and then went to host the conference. It was a stressful 30 mins getting it sorted before the event.

Needless to say, my head wasn’t quite in the game and it wasn’t my best presenting. It was nothing terrible and the clients probably wouldn’t have noticed, but I know it wasn’t my best work.

I’ve just had a paragraphs long email from a guy on the team (disliked by many) about how badly I did, and giving me advice on doing it better next time. This guy is more junior than me but has been around years.

I politely responded and said I knew it hadn’t gone well, my son had been sick and I was distracted, and thanks for the feedback.

He then sent THREE MORE Teams
messages about how that can happen to anyone and it’s no excuse and continued to criticise my presenting and give more unsolicited advice. He used the words “very poor etiquette” in two of the emails because I’d forgotten to introduce another speaker in a particular way. Again, this was really just a product of how stressed I was about my son being sick.

He isn’t wrong, it wasn’t a great event and I already felt shit about it, but the stream of criticism is really weighing on me.

How do I respond now? My manager also thoroughly dislikes this guy and I know will sort it out if I ask him, but that seems petty and immature. Plus I’m not sure I want to highlight to my manager (who wasn’t there) that I wasn’t on good form in the meeting!

"Fuck off, mate. You focus on your job and I’ll focus on mine. Capiche?"

I agree with PP, big mistake to say that a sick child was the cause of your less than stellar performance. It will be used against you.

@CuriousGeorge80's message would be a good one to send.

I would say ignore. Yes you could let your manager know but that will drag it on. If you are senior and want to get more senior there will always be unsolicited feedback and sometimes it will be inappropriate and done badly. You need to back yourself and ignore. Make the next presentation one of your best and let your work speak for itself.

If he continues to do this in relation to anything else you can consider feeding back to your line manager as numerous examples of unprofessional behaviour rather than one example where you are on the back foot.

Today it is all mixed up in you feeling it is justified. Next week it will be further away and you will feel more in control and like it is an annoyance.

He wants a reaction. Don't give it to him. Give him enough rope and he will damage his own career for himself. This has been my experience for over twenty years.

We all have off days and we are not defined by them. Instead we are judged by how good we are overall and if we keep the business moving when things are tough.

I appreciate this is not necessarily how it "should" work. But there are always going to be people who want to bring you down. You can go after each and every one of them (which is your right) or you can ignore continue to excel moving ahead and leaving them in the dust. You need to develop a rubber exterior where it bounces off.

If he sends anymore, just say this.
I feel this subject after 4 messages has now been exhausted and put to bed.
Unless you need help on a different matter, I feel your time can be more productive focused on other maters.

I agree, don’t tell your manager now but log is so you’re ready with a pattern of behaviour if / when you need to do something. Open a google doc on your personal drive and drop the dates and info in so it’s ready when you need it. Work Teams can be temperamental and lose / archive stuff

You’re in a male dominated industry. My advice would be to act like a man. He wouldn’t do this to a man because men are generally less agreeable than women and more combative. He has no right to critique your performance, he’s an underling. Put him firmly back in his place. Ask a guy, (husband/friend/family) what their response would be and send him that.

Forward to your manager immediately. Unless there is a culture of colleagues giving feedback to each other this is highly inappropriate. If your manager or Director had comments this is different and would be possibly fair enough, however junior team members spamming you with “constructive” criticism isn’t appropriate in any workplace I’ve ever worked in.

This....he is a nasty bully

If you’re senior to him I’d be calling him in for a face to face meeting. Little weasel is brave over teams but will he say the same face to face? Remind him that his length of service does not give him free rein to dish out poorly delivered feedback to anybody, especially someone more senior to him. Even if you think his feedback was accurate, don’t give him that. This is a power play and you need to maintain confidence.

Ooh I like that. I think this is how a man would deal with it.

This!

I’d email him something like “Hi Dave, in response to your recent feedback on my presentation, I’d like to confirm I’ve noted your comments and given them due consideration. However, I’m becoming concerned you may need some support in delivering effective feedback as it’s rarely appropriate to provide feedback on the same subject on 4 occasions. I’d be happy to provide some coaching in this area or you can access <insert appropriate training course> to brush up on this. Best wishes etc”

Stop defending/justifying yourself.
Either ignore or respond with "Thank You for your comment".
Also make sure your boss is fully aware and tell them that if it continues you will consider it bullying.
Having said that a lot of us have had personal issues and still managed to perform to a high standard. I ran a training session and lunch for clients 3 days after my Mum died - none of them had any idea.

Like any time you want to. de-escalate & move on.

Thank you for the feedback, duly noted. 🙂

I wouldn’t dignify it with “feedback”, that implies that he has the authority to offer you feedback, he doesn’t, he is poking with a stick.

“Your comments have been noted” is enough.

good suggestion on thinking what a man would do.

The person I had in mind will actually just ignore the email. Not deemed it relevant enough to give any thought or energy to it.

This is crying out for a passive aggressive “thumbs up” 👍 response…

This definitely needs addressing head on and face to face @darerowow otherwise he'll think it's appropriate going forward!!

As very many pp's have agreed, the post from @CuriousGeorge80 is perfect.

"Final one I might go for if I was 200% sure that my boss would back me would be to reply something like “David, I’ve already acknowledged that there were issues and have discussed them directly with Boss already. I am amazed that you feel it in any way appropriate to send me four messages on this matter in the tone that you have. I would strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to reflect on how you provide feedback.”"

Congratulations on your promotion! And well done for going ahead with the presentation. I can't offer any advice about how to deal with this obnoxious colleague, apart from the fact that surely a junior member of the hierarchy can't criticise those above him? (Unless I am mistaken and these days anything goes).

But I hope your message will be read by sah mums as an example of a day in the life of a working person. So next time they are tempted to talk about 'equal contribution' to the family life, maybe they will pause before posting 'how much help at home can I expect as a sahm from my sole provider partner?'.

"Final one I might go for if I was 200% sure that my boss would back me would be to reply something like “David, I’ve already acknowledged that there were issues and have discussed them directly with Boss already. I am amazed that you feel it in any way appropriate to send me four messages on this matter in the tone that you have. I would strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to reflect on how you provide feedback.”"

This is good. Talk about hitting him with his own Bible!

"Thank you for your feedback" and do not engage further. Nothing good will come of turning this into tit for tat.

Discuss his messages with your manager, and ageee a response with them (which might involve them raising it with him), as what is doing here, and the way he is doing it, is inappropriate.

“And what, may I ask, is the etiquette for sending a garage of unsolicited criticism to a more senior colleague?”

In many businesses, junior colleagues do have the authority to give feedback, and their views might be sought to feed into appraisals etc.

Just reply with 'noted, thanks' and then don't engage with him any more.

It’s such knobbish behaviour. I would never send a senior colleague unsolicited feedback on a presentation.

I wouldn’t have thanked him OP, even if it is ‘fair’ (I bet it’s not).