A NEWSLETTER FROM HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING ARTICLE REPRINT NO.

U0709D

Block That Defense: How to

Make Sure Your Constructive
Criticism Works
by Anne Field

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Block That Defense: How to Make Sure Your Constructive
Criticism Works
Your most talented employees may have the hardest time hearing honest feedback.
Here’s how to get past their defensiveness.
by Anne Field
T
he new CEO of a defense industry manufacturer,
eager to reshape the company’s command-
and-control culture, asked employees to
complete a survey about the performance of 10
division presidents, and then he called each executive in
individually to go over the results.
Discussions were proceeding smoothly until the CEO
sat down with one division president, a 38-year-old
wunderkind who had risen rapidly through the ranks.
Telling the executive that he had been given low marks
for communication skills and treating subordinates with
respect, the CEO met with fierce resistance. The division
president saw himself as a superstar and with good
reason: in a very numbers-driven environment, he had
consistently exceeded his finan-cial goals every quarter,
even when other divisions had stumbled.
Because top performers have
rarely failed, they haven’t really
learned how to learn from failure.
“With his track record of success, the executive just
couldn’t believe what he was hearing,” says Joseph R.
Weintraub, professor of management at Babson College
(Wellesley, Mass.), who served as a consultant to the
company. When the executive’s behavior didn’t improve
but actually got worse—the CEO heard reports of his
browbeating and humiliating subordinates—the CEO
realized he needed to get through to him, and fast. He
didn’t want to lose a star performer but neither did he
want that star’s abusive management style and poor
communication skills to erode the performance of others.
What’s more, the CEO recognized that his effectiveness
as a leader required that all his reports, no matter how
talented, be able to take in and respond to constructive
criticism.
So he scheduled several more meetings with the
defensive division president, this time spending additional
time expressing his confidence in the executive and giving
him more opportunity to talk. But it was only when the
Copyright © 2007 by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
CEO laid out the cold, hard fact that a failure to take in and
respond to the feedback could get him fired that the man
really showed a willingness to change his ways. Over time,
and with continued attention from the CEO, the division
president consistently started treating his subordinates
with respect and listening to their suggestions.
A NOVEL EXPERIENCE—AND AN UNWELCOME ONE
Why do top executives have difficulty receiving and
responding to constructive criticism? Because so many
highfliers, like the division president in the opening
story, have received little criticism in their careers. As
Chris Argyris, director emeritus of the Monitor Group
(Cambridge, Mass.) and the James Bryant Conant
Professor of Education and Organizational Behavior
Emeritus at Harvard Business School, writes in “Teaching
Smart People How to Learn,” a 1991 Harvard Business
Review article, “Because they have rarely failed, they have
never learned how to learn from failure.”
Although getting highfliers to take in and
respond to honest feedback can be tough,
it’s not impossible.
The high aspirations and high standards that drive top
performers, Argyris explains, are matched by an equally
high fear of failure and a tendency to feel shame at not living
up to those high standards. Without much experience of
failure, top performers have never developed a tolerance
for the feelings of threat or shame failure generates, nor
the skills to cope with those strong feelings.
The result is that when receiving criticism, the highest-
performing employees in an organization are the ones most
likely to become defensive—to “screen out criticism and
put the ‘blame’ on anyone and everyone but themselves.
In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the
moment they need it most,” Argyris writes.
Another reason a highly talented manager might be
resistant to constructive criticism is long tenure in her job
or with the organization.
Block That Defense continued
“The longer you’ve been in a job and the older you get,
the more established is your pattern of behavior and the
less likely you’ll be receptive—or able—to change,” says
Michael Beer, the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business
Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School.
Such a resistance to change can be exacerbated if the
person delivering the criticism is newer to the organization
and younger than the person receiving it.
Whatever the cause of resistance, its effects are toxic:
to the executive whose criticism is not being heard
and acted upon, to the organization employing (and
possibly enabling) a manager whose unchecked negative
behavior diminishes the contributions of her peers and
subordinates, and to the manager herself.
Although getting highfliers to take in and respond to
honest feedback can be tough, it’s not impossible. Here
are some tips for getting through your best managers’
defenses and getting your feedback heard.
PREPARE AS IF FOR A PRESENTATION
Louise Axon, head of the leadership and management
development practice at The Forum Corp., a management
training and consulting firm in Boston, recalls a tricky
situation she once helped the CEO of a professional
services company navigate. He needed to discuss
performance issues with a senior manager who had
received little feedback in his career, despite the fact
that his arrogance and tendency to build his own power
fiefdoms ran counter to the company’s collaborative
culture.
Because the senior manager had deep experience with
the company and in the industry, worked very well with
clients, and brought in a steady stream of new business,
keeping him onboard was critical to the firm’s success.
To make sure he could present his points clearly and
logically, the CEO spent a week and a half seeking out
and recording specific instances of the senior manager’s
negative behavior, and then he organized what he
gathered according to key themes—for instance, being too
controlling, damaging company cohesion and morale, and
so on. Then, when he sat down with the senior manager,
he framed the discussion in terms of what the senior
manager valued most—maintaining credibility within
the organization—and showed him how each category of
negative behavior worked against his own interests and
those of the firm.
REINFORCE THE MESSAGE—REPEATEDLY
Chances are, you won’t see improvement after one
HARVARD MANAGEMENT UPDATE | SEPTEMBER 2007
discussion. Indeed, it may take two or more conversations
for the person even to acknowledge that there is a problem
with her behavior.
In the story above, the CEO gave the senior manager
a week to mull over all the evidence of how his own
negative behaviors were undermining his reputation
and effectiveness, and then followed up with a second
discussion. After that, the CEO not only met weekly
with the senior manager but also stayed on the alert for
opportunities to give this manager immediate feedback.
For example, he called the executive right after a meeting
in which the offending behavior was repeated.
CUSTOMIZE THE CONVERSATION
Getting your message heard will be easier if you tailor
your delivery to fit the employee’s communication style.
If your direct report likes to make quick decisions and is
sometimes impatient with detail, then come to the point
quickly and present only as much supporting detail as
is necessary to establish the credibility of your point. If,
however, your direct report is highly detail oriented, be
prepared to walk step-by-step through specifics.
If a company clearly values continual
improvement and rewards its employees
for engaging in it, then it’s more likely that
executives will be able to get past their
own defensiveness to hear what they need
to do.
Whatever the employee’s communication style, mini-
mize her defensiveness by using nonjudgmental, neutral
language. For instance, avoid “You did this” and “You did
that” constructions, which can sound accusatory.
BE AWARE OF POWER SIGNALS
Think about what location says about power. If you choose
your office as the setting in which to deliver unexpected
and unwelcome criticism, then you might not want to sit
behind your desk because to do so signals your greater
power in the relationship. “The more equal the power, the
more you’re likely to have a give-and-take,” says Harvard
Business School’s Beer. Sitting together at a small working
table or in a pair of armchairs will establish more neutral
ground.
Of course, there are situations in which asserting your
power is precisely what you need to do. This was the case
4
Block That Defense continued
in the story at the beginning of this article: the division
president responded to the new CEO’s constructive
criticism only when the CEO reminded him that not
doing so would result in dismissal.
CONSIDER WHAT THE CULTURE COMMUNICATES
How a manager reacts to criticism received on the job is
not determined solely by her individual psychology—her
high aspirations or her intolerance of failure in herself—
nor by the manner in which that criticism is communicated
to her. The corporate culture that provides the context for
her work and her relationship with her manager also play
significant roles in encouraging—or discouraging—the
ongoing learning and improvement that are the ultimate
goal of thoughtful criticism.
If the corporate culture isn’t clear about what it takes
to be successful, “then constructive feedback can only go
so far,” says Babson’s Weintraub. He points to Whirlpool
5 HARVARD MANAGEMENT UPDATE | SEPTEMBER 2007
as an example of a corporation that communicates
particularly well what it takes to be successful; it stipulates
about a dozen dimensions of success, he says, all of which
are essential for being promoted to one of the top seven
positions in the company.
If a company clearly values continual improvement
and rewards its employees, including its top brass, for
engaging in it, then it’s more likely that executives will
be willing and able to get past their own defensiveness to
hear what they need to do to get to the next level. u
Anne Field is a Pelham, N.Y.–based business writer. She can
be reached at MUOpinion@hbsp.harvard.edu.
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