The power of positive criticism 2

Greetings All,

Positive criticism tips, from Hendrie Weisinger self-help book “The Power of Positive Criticism”

Tip #1 Befriend Criticism

Criticism comes with any job. It doesn’t matter whether you are a president, accountant, auditor, teacher, banker, player, salesperson or consultant.

Criticism comes with your job. And since it does, you might as well befriend it so that you can make it work for you.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of working people find this to be a most difficult task.

How many of you come home each day and say, “Brother, I had a great day today, I got criticized.”

What makes it difficult to befriend criticism? What’s so bad about being criticized?

Answer is you think “Criticism is negative.”

You evaluate criticism as a negative, and this negative evaluation of criticism dictates that you will almost always experience distressed feelings and act counterproductive to your interests. Criticism is so frequent; you will inevitably find that the mere thought of your presentation being criticized by your team members creates high anxiety.

Criticism is essential. Performance appraisal, team functioning, quality control, customer service, leadership and management development, and managing conflict are all daily organizational tasks that drive the welfare of an organization. In each of these tasks, giving and taking criticism is an essential and underlying factor as to how well the task is performed. For example, you cannot have an effective team unless team members can give and take criticism to and from each other. If an executive cannot take criticism, or if those close to him are ineffective in giving it to him, he has little chance of developing himself or his leadership skills.

Use criticism as tool to motivate, educate, develop, teach, and build relationships.

Write down a positive criticism message in high-visibility location. Every time you (and others) see it, you will be reinforcing your reappraisal of criticism as a positive.

Examples you could use are:

“Criticism is information that can help me grow.”

Regards,

CBS