What happens if you deliver the following criticisms to someone after they carried out a task unsuccessfully?

• “Didn’t even try, can’t seem to do anything right”
• “Maybe it’s just lack of talent. I’d try to get someone else to do it”

These statements sound quite harsh. Research was carried out on using these statements and the results were quite drastic. The people who received these criticisms were so demoralised, that they went defensive, they did not want to work on any project with the person who delivered the statements, either now or ever. They did not want to have any communication with them (stonewalling), and felt so let down that actually ended up less efficient at their work! In other words, even though they did not agree with the criticism or accept it, it still had affected their performances in the future. If one bad remark such as these examples had such a devastating effect, imagine what happens if this is repeated.

As you can imagine this is called ‘destructive criticism’. In contrast, what we really want is ‘constructive criticism’, something that goes on to help the person on the receiving end.