Now that you can comment on feedbacks received on the platform, we want to make sure that you are reacting constructively to the feedbacks that your colleagues, leaders, and subordinates send you.

Never react to feedback in the heat of the moment. It is important to reflect on feedback received for a while, especially if you are feeling hot-headed at the time due to something that was said. Reacting to anything while feeling like that work is a sure-fire recipe for making mistakes you will regret.

Improvement feedback, even if the constructives ones, can leave us in a state of stress. It is a biological reaction called “fight or flight”: our body senses threat and then releases a hormone called cortisol, throws blood at our limbs, dilates our pupils and... in short, prepares us for battle.

n Crucial Conversations, an absolutely indispensable book for anyone who wants to become emotionally smarter, Kerry Patterson says that we feel attacked because we often have our identity - our image of ourselves - put in check.

So if you feel a chill in your belly or something when you get feedback, take a deep breath, think about it for a few hours and, if possible, sleep on it. Only comment when you feel your head is in place.

An instinctive reaction that many can have when receiving feedback is to respond to it immediately by refuting its content.

We tend to defend ourselves against feedbacks received. Sometimes they have merit but they attack our sense of identity (see above). In such cases, we tend to refute feedback even though we know it is true inside.

In other cases, we know immediately that the feedback was poorly formulated. It eventually contains a restricted image of reality. Or it was given by someone we perceive as "without authority or merit" to give us that feedback (that is, someone not very proficient in the behavior being observed).

In either case, it is never good to respond to feedback to refute it.

Remember: we are often so alert, stressed or reactive because the feedback made sense, and threatened our image of ourselves. Don't blame your colleague for identifying any areas of improvement in you.

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