On Taking Criticism
observationalhazard.com
observationalhazard.com
Remembering those things can help take away the sting so you can view the feedback in a more detached way and be more likely to get some use out of it
Maybe because they had a bad day. Maybe because you're the expert. There could be a million reasons but few of them relate to the matter at hand. Keeping in mind criticism frequently comes from a place of relative weakness can help build bridges across the potentially harsh content to the real emotional background.
Edit: Well, obviously step one is to introspect and see what it is about your behaviour it would be reasonable to change. When that fails, step two is to find what emotions lie beneath the criticism.
That really is not something I would observe in practice.
It is tempting to think that they really feel inferior deep down or something like that, but it is pretty often not true. "He/she is just jealous" is just thing people say to make you feel good, but it is not based on reality.
This works great, starting with just 5 words
If you don't have 18:33, this is the essence of what she says:
They say: You are so fat. or You are terrible at public speaking. or That was crap.
You say, in a kind, untroubled, mildly nurturing voice:
[1] Thank you for sharing that.
It dissipates the tension.
In your own mind, you understand their insults, sarcasms or hurts are not anything to do with you, and will not affect you if you don't let it in. So you let your thoughts move on.
If they come back with another hurtfully worded criticism, you look directly into their eyes, raise your eyebrows a little, and say:
[2] I'm sorry, I didn't actually hear all of that. Could you please repeat that slowly for me?
They have to think about what they have said. 90% of the time, they will retract it and apologise, saying they misspoke.
If they persist with criticism, you say, quizically:
[3] Oh... are you trying to hurt my feelings?
Often they will modify what they say to clear up the misunderstanding, by explaining that they are only trying to help you. Or whatever.
Rarely, someone will go on the attack, by saying Yes, and repeating the insult. If that happens, you say
[4] Well that's not going to work because I'm not going to let that in.
And you don't let it in. You recognise that you are in an exchange with someone who has these exchanges with other people often because that is who they are, but it has nothing to do with who you are.
If they persist, you say, in a measured, almost academic voice:
[5] Did you know that critical people have the most criticism reserved for themselves? They don't like themselves. They are expressing outwards their own dissatisfaction. When you do this you are showing me, and everyone else in the office, that you are your own worst critic.
On a serious note: Lashing out is not "feedback"!
I think the customer metaphor may not be great for describing the student-teacher or student-school relationship.
1. Students may be paying for education, but often the government is also paying for it (consider the cliché that "even full tuition only pays for half of your educational costs at our university.") This is particularly true at community colleges, where the students are more like the beneficiaries rather than the customers.
2. Teaching might sometimes be akin to coaching (or even therapy or parenting), where the instructor is trying to help students improve in ways that they presumably want in the long run but might occasionally vigorously resist in the short term due to the difficulty involved. Ideally a learning or training curve would be perfectly smooth, balanced, and self-motivated, but this isn't always the case.
3. Possibly contradicting #2, it probably isn't possible to teach someone unless that person is, at some level, willing to learn. Which is to say that teachers are like facilitators who help students to succeed at teaching themselves.
4. Most university students aren't paying out of pocket, nor are their parents; often they are saddled with massive student loans. This means that the loan company may be the paying customer the university is actually catering to, and the student is more like a token that is being passed around.
Most of the time the person you are interacting with often isn‘t the one deciding to hire you. The interests of an employee may not be aligned with the interests of the managers that decided to hire you. They don‘t pay you their employer does.
I had instances where we worked closely with lower level management and helped them convince management of something and other instances were we worked more closely with management and had strict guidelines on how to interact with employees and lower level management.
Over the years I've just learned to get over it. You can't make everyone happy. Unfortunately you take up an aloof selfish nature by doing so. Criticism doesn't affect you. You take it as input and gauge whether or not there someone worth modifying your behavior over. You just keep trying to achieve whatever object you are pursuing. In the end, why does it matter?! A quote I heard somewhere a long time ago but can't remember where was something along the lines of "Those who are remembered are worth criticizing. Those who are not, were of no issue." In a lot of ways this exact example reminds me the episode from TNG where Picard dies and relives his life. He takes the safe route and doesn't even end up on command. Q than revives him and he got to experience what it was like if he chosen the "safe lane" in life. Always having a positive impression and people relying on them, but not the Captain of the ship (where he has often received criticism from all over the galaxy).
Criticism in a nutshell means you're doing something. Something enough to make someone upset. It's up to you to learn about yourself and understand why you're possibly in the wrong. You cannot always go through life living apathetic to how you affect others. You sometimes need to learn when to humble yourself for show, and prostrate yourself for prestige.
1. Ask yourself "why am I reading the feedback at all?" Is this because I am just curious or is it because I want to learn something actionable that will benefit myself?
2. Is reacting emotionally going to help? We teach kids to not react too emotionally at school but then we oftentimes can't do the same as adults.
3. Why would the other person give you negative feedback? Is the reason stated in the feedback or is there some underlying cause (you started on a wrong foot, he/she doesn't like you, etc.)
4. Are the things in the feedback something that you can fix directly or indirectly? There is no need to worry about things that are outside your influence.
5. Are the things in the feedback something that you want to fix? Somebody gave me the feedback that I program slowly (I am developer). I actually do it on purpose and the person lacks the experience to understand why. Of course, no need to point it out loud. On the other hand, I can think how to improve the message.
6. Is there anything you can think of that can benefit yourself? Use feedback as a potential trigger to do some potentially deep thinking about yourself. I sometimes benefit from feedback in ways that would be very difficult to directly link with the feedback itself -- it just happened to start a fortuitous line of thought.
7. Always thank for feedback, whatever it is. Tell people you value the fact they came to you and that you need to think what you are going to do with this. Tell people that in the future, you would like them to continue coming to you if they have any more feedback. Don't get defensive and ABSOLUTELY NEVER get hostile.
It is a little bit of process I go through every time I receive feedback.
1: What was good about [this event]?
2: What could I have done better?
I try to avoid using negative words, like bad or criticism. It is important to get some feedback that has focus on self-improvement.
1) Honest 2) Will help you improve 3) Constructive 4) Political
if its any of the first 3, take it and learn from it, if its 4), avoid the politics but see if you can learn from it