 An employee who can't take criticism or won't accept feedback can be very difficult to manage. When everything is going well, when the employee doesn't take feedback, it's an annoyance not a major issue. When aspects of their work, behaviour, choices or actions are not going well, then the employee who refuses to accept criticism can quickly become a major issue to you the manager and to the team as a whole. Imagine if an employee wouldn't improve their output, which in turn delayed an important project with significant consequences for the business. There would be a lot of angry people putting a lot of pressure on you and the rest of the team. I have seven steps to manage an employee that can't take criticism that I found works to get your feedback across and improve the chances of change and action from them. The fifth and sixth steps are about coaching the other person to explore the issues rather than telling them your views. This takes longer, but it is usually a lot more effective in creating change with employees who can't take criticism. My name is Jess Coles and if you're new here, enhance the training shares, people management expertise, resources and courses, for you to manage your team with integrity and fairness and get outstanding results. I've included links to additional videos and resources in the description below as well as the video timestamps so do take a look at these. And if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. When managing any employee, one of the most important things is to keep in mind is that every person's situation is different, so you have to flex what you do to the person and the situation you have in front of you. The first three steps we're covering today are preparation steps. Do these well and the actions you take will be a lot easier to do and be more effective. Don't prepare well and you can easily damage relationships and trust. It is not easy to repair damage to trust, so please prepare well. The first step for employees who can't take criticism is to work out exactly what the issues are. By being really clear what the issues are and collecting examples, you can avoid appearing to give your feedback as an opinion. The more you can keep your feedback factual, specific and focused on, firstly the specific behaviours, secondly the actions or lack of actions and thirdly the choices and decisions, that easier it will be to discuss the issues without appearing to criticise them as individuals. Be specific when detailing what the issues are. An example might be, yesterday on Tuesday Bill shouted at Lisa using an aggressive tone of voice in front of the whole team and called her stupid. Lisa looked very upset with shrinking body language and at least three team members looked very disapproving and uncomfortable with the display. This is very different from, I didn't like the way Bill shouted at Lisa yesterday. Being specific with the issues helps you come up with much more specific questions to ask the person who can't take criticism. Specific questions are harder to avoid and it helps to get them talking. Define the impact of the issues is the second step for employees who won't accept feedback. When you're providing negative feedback you are in effect asking for change. Change requires effort and to put in that effort a person needs a personal reason. Think the specific issues you have to specific impacts on individuals, teams and the business. Impacts can be described in many ways, in some examples might be firstly because of X decision you made we as a team lost three weeks which in turn and you go on to describe the impacts. Secondly the impact of you shouting at Lisa is a damage relationship, anger, hurt which also translate into a lower level of trust and teamwork which in turn and then you can talk about the impacts on them personally. Use your judgement and be realistic, do not underplay or overplay the impacts. Then workouts how the impacts to others and the business may feed through to the impact on the individual. Again when you are clear on the chain of impacts you can ask better leading questions to get the employee who won't accept feedback thinking through the impacts. The third step for employees who can't take criticism is to clearly define the outcomes you want. Define the outcome you want in terms of the change you want from the person in question. For Bill shouting at Lisa the changes might include, if firstly helping Bill to communicate more constructively his own anger, frustration and annoyance. Thirdly it could be ensuring Bill does not shout at Lisa or any other team members again. And thirdly it could be making sure the team sees me take action on Bill's shouting without portraying confidentiality. Being clear on the outcome that you want creates a focal point and a goal for your subsequent conversations with the employee who can't take criticism. The fourth step for an employee who won't accept feedback is always discussing private. You're praised publicly but you should always keep any criticism firmly to private situations. Book a meeting room, take a short walk, use your next one on one meeting and create an opportunity to have a private conversation without delaying unnecessarily. Aim to keep yourself relaxed and to keep them relaxed. I always try to go for informal rather than formal in most situations. Always have conversations criticising actions choices or behaviour in private. This is even more important for employees who can't take criticism. The fifth step to manage an employee who can't take criticism is to use questions to lead rather than feedback to tell. What to say to an employee who can't take criticism is a challenge. I use questions to get the other person talking and then concentrate on listening and understanding their position. During your preparation steps you've been working on a list of questions that you can ask to focus the conversation on the points that you want them to cover. The best way I've found for how to give feedback to someone who hates getting it is by asking targeted questions and leading them to give themselves realistic feedback. Using questions is a lot less confrontational and involves much less negative emotion than telling the other person what you think. It is definitely my default approach for any emotionally charged situation or when an employee won't accept feedback. Here is an example of giving negative feedback to an employee through using questions. And I've outlined a conversation towards a difficult end of what is common in these situations. Manager Bill can you tell me more about how you were feeling just before and during your talk with Alicia yesterday? Bill Err what talk? Manager I and the rest of the team saw you stand up at your desk and state a few things to Alicia yesterday. I think this was around 1pm. Bill I can't really remember. Manager You looked very emotional and had strong views. I would be amazed if you didn't remember it. Bill Okay I do remember it. I just don't want to talk about it. Manager I appreciate that talking about it might not be easy. I have to talk about it with you. It's part of my job as a manager. I'd like to help you come up with different ways to manage that situation. Please would you tell me about what you were thinking and feeling? Bill Okay And the conversation continues. Be diplomatic and considerate and remain direct so that you don't let the other person off the hook. Using questions, a calm tone of voice and interested body language does wonders to get the other people talking. As always, use your judgement and remain aware of the non-verbal feedback from the other person in front of you. They want to talk to you when they trust you and you have to earn that trust. Demonstrate that you have their best interests at heart. The sixth step for employees who won't accept feedback is to ask them to create solutions. Another very effective way of getting employees who won't accept feedback to take in, understand and accept feedback is if you ask them to help you create solutions to the feedback issue. For example, you could ask them to help you understand the best way to give them feedback. An example might be in manager Bill, I could really use your help. Would you mind helping me? Bill, what do you want to help with? Manager I'm really struggling to understand the best way to give you useful feedback. I don't want you to get left behind as the team improves. How would you prefer me to approach helping you? Bill, I don't really understand what you mean. Manager Can you coach me or tell me how best to speak to you about the areas that benefit you to improve? Bill, I think you know that I don't like getting feedback. I find it difficult to receive. I would appreciate you coaching me through examples that I can realise what I'm doing well and what I'm not doing well. This works a lot better for me than really just directly telling me the feedback. Would you mind taking that approach? Manager, thank you for helping me. I really appreciate it. I'll do my best user coaching approach and the conversation continues with the manager asking questions and listening. Asking for their help puts control in their hands. They decide to help or not. And this increases the feeling of safety and I think it helps Bill trust. If they're not ready to help you, don't push it. Return to the conversation at the next sensible opportunity. One thing you can't do is ignore or forget about the issues. You must keep signalling that it is important to you to resolve with them. The seventh step to manage an employee who can't take criticism is to be patient to build trust. You build trust by letting the employee who can't take criticism choose the pace at which they are willing to let you help them. You build trust by doing all you can to help them personally. By helping them, you should be helping the team, which in turn helps you personally. You can't demand trust or tell someone to trust you. You have to earn trust. So be patient and make sure all your decisions, actions and behaviours are relying to building trust with everyone on your team and in particular any employees that won't accept feedback. Don't ignore or forget about the issues. You must keep signalling that it is important to you to resolve them by carefully asking good, relevant questions to get them thinking and talking. In summary, we've covered the best way I know for what to do when your employee doesn't take feedback. Giving feedback when employees can't handle it can create more problems than it solves. I have found that using questions to lead an employee through exploring the feedback that I want them to accept is a much more productive and useful approach. Using questions does take more time and effort than simply telling them but every employee you use this with is much more likely to take action and change which of course is what you want. The seven steps to manage an employee who can't take criticism we've covered today are, firstly, work out exactly what the issues are. Secondly, define the impact of the issues. Thirdly, clearly define the outcome you want. Fourth, always discuss in private. Fifth, use questions to lead rather than feedback to tell. Sixth, ask them to create solutions. And then seventh, be patient to build trust. And if you have any questions on the seven steps to manage an employee who can't take criticism, please leave them a comment section below and I'll get back to you. And don't forget to take a look at the additional videos and resources in the description below as well. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.