Criticism Without Demotivation
Practice six-step criticism with employees of different styles so that the person puts things right instead of getting defensive.
Why this exercise
Criticism easily turns into a dressing-down, after which people hide their mistakes. In this exercise the manager and the employee receive different halves of the same situation, and the employee's card states their behavioral style. The manager sees how the same conversation has to be built differently, and the observer watches for the moment a lecture begins.
How to run it
- Groups of three: manager, employee, observer. The manager and the employee receive different halves of a situation and do not show them to each other.
- 2 minutes of preparation: the manager thinks through the steps of the conversation and the feedback model.
- 7 minutes of conversation, 6 minutes of feedback: the manager — what worked; the employee — what helped or hindered them in accepting the criticism; the observer — using the checklist.
- Three rounds of 15 minutes, changing roles and taking a new situation.
- General debrief, 15 minutes: the trainer reads out good phrases from the managers.
Debrief questions
- What helped the "employee" not to get defensive?
- How did the employee's style change your conversation?
- Which step was hardest? Usually the pause.
- Which phrase will you take away with you?
- Walk between the groups and write down good phrases word for word — read out 3–4 in the debrief.
- If the manager starts lecturing, the observer stops them: "Which step are you on?" — and the conversation continues from the pause.
- Replace 1–2 situations with the client's own cases.
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