Ask Christa! How to Give Feedback to a Defensive Team Member?? (S2E15)

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and today's question is a big one and one I believe everyone can relate to, and that’s giving feedback to someone who is habitually defensive. Here’s the question: 

“We have a very defensive person on our team. We cannot say anything to him without him immediately blaming others or deflecting any responsibility or diverting attention to something else. It’s to a point when we tip-toe around him. The quality of his work isn’t good, and many of us take turns re-doing his work after it’s done. We sometimes see him struggle with something, but we can’t even offer help without him being offended. We have a good HR team, and after a recent eruption in a meeting, our HR business partner is getting him some help, but it got me wondering: what is the best way to handle giving feedback to a co-worker who is easily offended or very defensive?”

Many of the questions I’m receiving for Season 2 is about managing inter-team dynamics, and almost all of them are related to how stressful it can be—and IS—in various work environments.

There are a lot of reasons why someone might be easily offended or defensive—and I want to highlight that those two characteristics often go together and might appear to be spurred by the same things, but in fact they are different. If someone prefers a polite environment and works in a place where people use coarse expressions, playfully insult each other or humorously put others down, and casually swear around the office, they’ll probably be offended every day. 

And if the person who prefers a polite environment receives a direct hit—say a put-down—they may become defensive if they are offended enough, but not everyone instantly becomes defensive when they are offended. In fact, a lot of times in the workplace, when people are offended by a co-worker or co-workers’ behavior, they don’t say anything. They don’t behave defensively per se, or at least, that’s probably not their immediate response. 

Meanwhile, people who are habitually defensive as the question describes become defensive because they feel attacked—even if it’s feedback intended to support their success or help them. They are offended in a way that is disproportionate to the offense.

Using the question as an example, if the co-worker’s work isn’t up to the quality expected—let’s say they just finished a client presentation but forgot a confidentiality label, which is a requirement for all client presentations. In the normal course of a workday, team members can and should look out for each other, and say, “Oh, don’t forget the confidentiality label.” And what we’d all expect is to hear, “Oh, thanks—completely forgot,” or “Yep, no worries, I saw that just as I opened this up and I’m changing it right now-- thank you.”

But someone with a defensive characteristic or behavior would view the reminder as an attack: that by reminding them of the confidentiality label you are saying they don’t know how to do their job, or that they aren’t smart enough to remember the label, or that someone else is trying to tell them what to do. And it’s more than feeling embarrassed or shy about admitting a critical part of the presentation was forgotten; defensive behavior displays as intense distress, annoyance, frustration and even anger that anyone would point out a flaw in the presentation.

Now, there are a lot of reasons why someone may behave in a defensive way:

·       They’ve been criticized their whole life

·       They’re perfectionists and feel deeply uncomfortable if anyone points out a flaw

·       They have a very low self-esteem, so any indication of not being good enough feels like an attack reinforcing the low esteem

·       Or they are neurodiverse and cannot process feedback well, in which case they deserve coaching and assistance to avoid issues with the team (the team also deserves to work with a respectful co-worker who can control impulses, behave professionally, and maintain emotional regulation)

If it’s one-off or unusual behavior—say the person is unusually defensive when they’re typically good about taking feedback, then perhaps they’ve lost sleep over the last few days or weeks, or are under an enormous amount of stress, or have a personal strain outside of work, or just got really bad news.

So… what do you do?

For starters, take care of yourself first and don’t. react. It’s easy to feel defensive after experiencing defensive behavior because that’s the point, and the first time you receive a defensive response, the aim from the other person is to shut what you said down, and shut you down so you won’t do that again. That neutralizes whatever threat the other person may feel. 

And their defensiveness is meant to move the spotlight off of them and onto you so they don’t have to deal with whatever triggered them. 

So don’t. react. You becoming defensive about someone else’s defensiveness will perpetuate a cycle you can’t win.

Second, reset, and a lot of times that means walking away in order to reset. You can say, “OK, we can talk about this another time.” And walk . away. If you’re going to address this constructively and not fall into a pattern, it’s important to quiet yourself down and then determine what you want to accomplish. Is there urgency for the person to hear the feedback? Client issues? Or can it wait until you feel better prepared to handle a defensive response you weren’t expecting.

Third, think of how you want to address the issue at hand—not the defensive behavior, that’s actually a separate issue. What were you trying to convey the first time that triggered the defensive behavior? That probably still needs to be discussed: the actual feedback you were seeking to provide.

There are a variety of ways to manage giving defensive co-workers and employees feedback, knowing they may be triggered. It’s not a one-size-fits-all, so I’ve offered additional resources to help you with various strategies.

For sure, there are a few things for YOU to think about, though, because aside from addressing the actual feedback, you also DO have to address the defensive behavior, which can range from off-putting (meaning: you will stop providing feedback because it’s too painful… which is… kinda the point) to outwardly abusive—verbal insults, put-downs, yelling, withholding of information… silent treatment. 

None of that is appropriate in the workplace—or anywhere, frankly.

Now, some may say to handle it in private and directly at first, but I want you to instead check in with yourself and determine what you may need to rebuild trust with that co-worker, if that is an option and if you think it’s possible. Many times we think we should address something directly, because— we’re told that’s the best way to address any type of conflict or tense situation—but that’s not going to work well if someone has a history of being defensive and their objective is to shut you down so that you never, ever approach them again with feedback. 

So, maybe the “speak-privately and directly” approach isn’t the right approach for you if you feel the defensive behavior is too intense or otherwise inappropriate. Talk to your boss, and if it’s your BOSS, then talk to HR, and if you don’t have a supportive HR team, talk to a mentor… submit it here to my show. I’ll offer advice and resources to get you on the right path. That’s what my show is all about.

But accept that the private-and-direct way isn’t the best way for you, and that’s OK. Seek support.

Part of your support will likely be in the resources I have selected for this segment. I included one research-based paper about defensive behavior at work so you can go deeper into the research on this topic if you’d like, but I also offered four other articles that will provide perspective, from identifying the root-cause of defensiveness to when it’s time to let your HR team or other professionals know you have a problem on your hands.

You’ll see an article from Training Mag called, “Ways to manage defensive behavior.” There’s also a great and recent article from Liane Davey’s website called “Understanding defensive behavior in the workplace,” and an article from Forbes called “Five tips for coaching Defensive Employees.” I also included another article called, “How managers should respond to defensiveness after feedback.” It’s from an unusual source—not a typical business site, but clearly the person offering advice, someone who’s been a leader in high tech, has come up against defensive behavior in employees. 

Wooo… I hope this helpful to the person who submitted the question, although I also know this is a common challenge we all experience. 

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