79. The opposite of constructive feedback and how to deal with it!

Hi everyone and welcome to a new episode of Project Mindset. In today’s episode, I want to talk about dealing with destructive feedback. We’ve discussed positive feedback and how to handle criticism in general in previous podcast episodes, but today’s episode focuses specifically on situations where someone is sitting across from you and criticizing something you’ve done, perhaps even years ago, in a truly destructive way, and how to deal with such people.

I saw a very interesting segment a few days ago on Markus Lanz’s show. There were several guests, including Frank Thelen, a technology investor, and Ulrike Herrmann, who, as I understand it, is an editor at a daily newspaper. The conversation started off quite simply and easily, and they talked about various topics. It was also clear that the guests had different opinions.

Then at some point, Frank Thelen said something that led to a complete escalation of the situation. I think it’s best if I read it aloud briefly because I think it’s a prime example of destructive feedback. Frank Thelen explained a bit about how inflation arises. I want to emphasize that I don’t want to go into the content of what he said, but only how the feedback was given. So, as I said, Frank Thelen gave his opinion on how inflation arises, and Ms. Herrmann then responded as follows.

A scene from a TV discussion

Let me read it aloud. She then said, no, that’s the wrong economic theory, that’s Milton Friedman, which has already been disproven. So far, so good. But now comes the problem. If you’re actually an entrepreneur and you’re investing based on a flawed monetary theory, then I see a problem. Honestly, quite seriously, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve gone bankrupt several times. I have to say, that’s a rather aggressive way of putting it, and then it gets even more complicated.

If you don’t yet know where inflation comes from, that’s really embarrassing. That’s important for you as an investor. So, you could really tell at that moment that Frank Thelen was completely thrown off balance. He didn’t really know how to respond. I thought that feedback wasn’t very constructive at all. It didn’t contribute anything to the situation, I would say. Ms. Herrmann apparently wanted to belittle Frank Thelen’s competence in some way.

Similar situations in everyday life

And I have to say, I was really surprised that something like this was being said so openly on television. But I’ve noticed that my listeners and I have also experienced similar situations where someone has said something incredibly aggressive and offensive. You simply don’t know how to respond in that moment. In fact, a good friend of mine told me a while ago about a situation that, well, not exactly the same, but along those lines, where someone criticized her in a really unkind way, and she didn’t know how to react at first.

She was so stunned. I have my own special mindset strategy for that. You know, I’m always talking about my mindset tools. I have a particular mindset strategy for how I deal with such an attack, I’m deliberately putting it that way. A situation like that happened to me once. I remember it very well, actually. It was a while ago, but it went like this. I left my startup at the time. We decided not to continue in that format anymore.

Personal experiences after the startup

I have to say, it was really tough for me. It wasn’t a bankruptcy in the strictest sense, but we essentially decided to stop. I then left my own company and joined another one, where I actually got off to a pretty good start. Then, during a discussion with someone—it was a meeting, too—someone said, “Hey Reza, you didn’t really succeed with product development back then, in that format. Why do you think you’ll succeed with these products for us now?”

So, in front of everyone. And then I think to myself, yeah, this guy seems to want to make a bit of an aggressive move. He might also want to put himself above me morally. He wants to belittle my achievements, whether past or present, so that he, for example, is in a better position. And personally, I always have a kind of three-pronged approach to what I use, what I actually do. If someone criticizes me in that format or on that kind of stage, be it in a meeting, I would have recommended that Frank Thelen do the same.

Continued

I would react completely calmly. And my first thought was, ah, there’s that one person, and this person is completely interchangeable, but this one person who regularly appears in my life and criticizes something I’ve done at some point. Be it something good or something bad. And then, even with this mindset, you deal with the situation more calmly. Yes, of course, every few months, every few weeks, or once a year, or whatever, this one person comes along who has to criticize everything you’ve ever done.

Once you realize that, in your mind, this person is actually interchangeable, and that there simply has to be someone criticizing you, then you approach the situation more calmly. My next step is to always be completely transparent whenever such a situation arises. Even in Frank Thelen’s position, I would have said, “Yes, hey, this happened. I went bankrupt for these and those reasons. And this and that happened, it was all legal, legally sound.” So, what’s your point?

What does that have to do with today’s situation? Let’s look at my own case. I even said at the time, “Yes, that’s right, I made a few wrong decisions back then, and I’ve learned from them, and therefore I hope to be able to make better decisions now.” It’s about being completely open and transparent about why you think you can make better decisions now and what simply went wrong back then. That really takes the wind out of their sails, as they say.

Easing the situation with openness

The situation cools down a bit. Some people might continue, but most relax and realize, okay, hey, that was unnecessary stress I caused. And he’s right, you typically learn from your mistakes. If it does continue, then personally—this is my third step—I would launch a counterattack, a counter-offensive, so to speak, and ask really, really tough and direct counter-questions with confidence.

Or perhaps, if someone is already trying to morally superior to me or try to belittle my achievements, then I would, for example, ask at the Frank-T-Position, “Hey, yes, I had one, two, three bankruptcies.” I have no idea how many bankruptcies he had. We had X number of employees. Our payments included X amount in income tax, X in health insurance and X in pension contributions. Basic research was part of our work. We gained experience.

What exactly did you do during that time? Seriously, if someone tries to belittle your performance, reiterate what happened. And now tell me, what did you do during that time? And this woman, without having looked at her resume specifically, I don’t suspect she had as many employees as Frank Thelen, or that she paid as much tax over such a long period. That’s just my assumption. And I’d hate to make such a comparison, but when someone tries to give feedback in such an aggressive and, well, unconstructive way, then in my view, you have to push back a bit.

Consciously apply the three steps

And when you go through these three steps, really thinking, “Ah yes, there’s this one person who appears in my life at regular intervals—and this person is interchangeable—and criticizes something,” then I’m prepared. Then I know, “Ah yes, there’s that person again.” The second step is to speak transparently about what happened and also say, “Hey, what does this have to do with the current situation, for example?” And, for instance, “I might be able to make better decisions because I’ve already made a wrong decision once.”

And the third point is, really, counter-offensive states, if someone tries to belittle me, then ask very specifically, “Yes, what did you actually do during that period, for example? Why do you think you’re better now?” It doesn’t even have to be on a business level. For example, I can tell you about an acquaintance of mine, as I mentioned earlier, who was accused of not being able to maintain a long-term relationship and of constantly having new partners.

Explain decisions openly

Then I think to myself, so what? If she realizes she’s unhappy in the relationship and changes partners accordingly, then it’s a good thing that she’s seeking her own happiness. Or a friend of mine was accused, in a conversation, of not being able to commit to his job. He changes jobs regularly. And then I think to myself, so what? He’s just not like many other people who are totally unhappy in their jobs and still do them day in and day out; he’s simply not ready to be unhappy.

Continued

And if he realizes the job doesn’t fulfill him, he simply changes jobs. This applies to any area of life. And I think if you’re transparent about mistakes—what do you mean by mistakes?—if you’re transparent about the situations, about how and why things happen, and why do you think they did? Why do you even allow yourself to talk about it? That’s a valid question. If you’re that transparent, you take the wind out of everyone’s sails and can then perhaps move on to a more constructive part of the conversation.

Check even poorly packaged feedback

Okay everyone, it was important to me today to talk about truly unconstructive feedback. In many past podcast episodes, we’ve discussed feedback in general. I’m always very open to feedback. I see every single piece of feedback I receive as a golden nugget. Perhaps that’s also the right attitude when it comes to today’s topic. Of course, it’s also possible that you simply didn’t present the valuable point well at the time. You can and should also consider whether there might actually be some truth to what the other person said.

So, feedback, even if it doesn’t initially come across as constructive, might contain a grain of truth. But for me, it was important today to talk about a case where someone just blurted out whatever came to mind, simply to avoid contributing constructively to any kind of discussion. So, I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast episode. If so, please give it a like and subscribe to the channel, because that’s the only way Project Mindset can continue to grow.

Thank you for listening and see you next time. Don’t forget, until then, mindset is everything.