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!

Agree, said it better than I did.

Can’t you reply with ‘ while I agree with the contents of your emails you may want to work on your delivery of them’

When they do it they are progressive, hands on fathers. When we do it it is special pleading.

@Thepeopleversuswork so so so bloody true!!

Thank you Dave for your thoughtful feedback which I have noted. I was already aware of much of it but it's always important to be open to the views of valued colleagues.

In terms of giving negative feedback, I think there are few useful pointers I could also share about repeated critique:

1. It weakens the message, especially when the content has already been acknowledged.
2. It invites the reader to suspect the motivations of the critic.
3. It can be interpreted as crossing that fluid line into bullying.

Thanks (again) for helping me to improve! Regards,

I love this.

This is brilliant.

I wouldn’t do a duly noted. If you don’t want to do a face to face, maybe something like this?

“Dave, considering my performance was more than satisfactory is testament to how smoothly I run these events. Are you looking to shadow me and this is some form of flattery?”

I agree with a previous poster it is very unlikely you were promoted because you worked the hardest. It's more likely you performed the best at the interview and just do the best job. Also no one gives a perfect presentation. Likely there would have been areas of improvement even if your son wasn't ill. And you were likely perfectly fine just not as good as you wanted it to be. I also don't agree with responding with too long an email as it gives him what he wants which is a reaction from you. Thumbs up is best.

Exactly! I love a secretly passive aggressive thumbs up 🤣

If you let it fly now he will do it again and others! Don’t let him walk over you! You’re the senior member here. He could act like this with other people- this is your opportunity to stop a bully. You have a duty to report.

Nothing more powerful than silence. Some people will argue with their own shadow and any form of engagement at all fuels the fire.

the trouble with any form of continued interaction is that its interaction.

a firm response might get him riled and he will report you for pulling rank etc etc etc.

a thumbs up might suggest agreement.

silence suggests precisely nothing and gives no

I mean by all means report him to HR in case it builds a disciplinary picture. This is really important actually. You can do that without engaging with him further. just tell the HR person you’re perfectly happy with dealing with him yourself for now but you want it noted somewhere for the future just in case/ in case anyone junior to him feels less able to deal with/ disregard his nonsense.

Sorry, *gives him no oxygen

This would never happen at my organisation, it would be classed as bullying and he would be in serious trouble from HR. Firstly, for shaming you and putting you down in front of others and secondly, because he has harassed you when dealing with a sick child.

The thing is there are loads of these types of people who can dish out advise but couldn’t do it themselves.

I like the ‘Noted’ response. It shows you’ve read it and gives absolutely no ammunition to the other person.

Never give this person any information or excuses they will use it against you!

He wouldn't have behaved like this if you were a man.

If this happens again, a simple, "ah you can't get a coconut every time" should shut it down. No one is expected to be at 100% all the time.

Didn’t see your response when I posted. Agreed.

This is harassment and intimidation. Please don't condone this by saying that standing up for yourself is "Petty" - Comments like this are damaging for women when it comes to being believed and reporting things; otherwise you just become a part of the problem. He needs to be dealt with before he thinks he can become an inferior voice toward a younger and much more inexperienced member of staff.

What's more - It wasn't up to him to point this out to you. You were already aware of your performance. Has anybody else pointed it out? Probably not. It was not his place and should not be his concern. It sounds like your boss is reasonable and would understand you having one off day, especially if you're really hard working. Not all bosses are like robots.

This ^

Really good advice here.

This.

Ignore and move on. Just being snarky - it’s not good ‘etiquette’ to give people unsolicited feedback either. What a d!ck.

It seems to me that you are a conscientious and well performing person that at one moment in time did an acceptable performance as opposed to your usual high performance. It was still acceptable and delivered the necessary outcome for your clients. Sounds to me like you did a good job in difficult and distracting circumstances, but that nonetheless you have already reflected and understand what happened, what you could have done differently- which is a credit to you. It doesn’t seem like any further feedback is in order.

A few thoughts on handling in my experience.

You’ve acknowledged the feedback from your colleague. Like others have said, use that “like” button in teams to acknowledge the latest message. Don’t be drawn into protracting the discussion. It’s done.

Personally, I would not choose to acknowledge in email that your performance was “less than”. Even if you think it was, don’t give anyone- even a friendly boss- ammunition in written form of that nature. You might in a verbal discussion mention that it had been a tough session due to your sick child, you were relieved it still went well and customers were happy etc. little bit of (in my opinion) valid positioning, so if anyone makes any noises to your boss, it’s not a surprise, but you’ve got ahead of it with a bit of gentle proactive damage control.

good luck!

You made a mistake in excusing your performance to start with. He's not your boss. The only person you need to excuse yourself to is your manager. If someone inappropriate criticises your work direct them to him or her.

Tell him his etiquette is inappropriate - see how he likes a taste of his own medicine - and add that his comments have been noted unless he has anything else relevant to add (he hasn’t got anything; we know that).

Ask him what's the purpose of his further emails. Let him know you acknowledged his first correspondence admitting it wasn't your best presentation, explained the reasons why you were distracted & thanked him for his feedback so what's the point of further criticisms? I'd let your Manager know what's happened so you get your side across first in case this Colleague goes to him/her tale tattling.