Have you ever suspected there is no such thing as constructive criticism?
Here are some words from Professor James Harvey Robinson’s essay 'The Mind In The Making’
“We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without
any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are
wrong we resent the imputation and harden our hearts.”
William James said,
“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
Both of those quotes were used by Dale Carnegie. The William James quote appears in Carnegie’s 1936 classic, ‘How To Win Friends & Influence People’. [The title says it all.]
The key Dale Carnegie message is – Every human being wants to feel important.
Carnegie teaches we should not criticize because it will be received as an attack on the person’s need to feel important. And, that need to feel important is a huge, consuming need.
Some argue that same need is the thing that causes people to criticize. That is, we act like a mirror perceiving in others the faults that actually are our own faults.
Perhaps it is as difficult to refrain from criticizing others as it is to accept criticism from others.
I have a saying…work at having thick skin and a thin skull. To the extent we can thicken our skin we can tolerate criticism. Thick skin allows us to contain in safety our self-image and our self-esteem. It protects ‘our importance’. To the extent we can have a thin skull we can be open-minded. We can, as Stephen Covey recommends, “seek first to understand then to be understood”. A thin skull allows us to be tolerant and to appreciate the differences in people.
Considering all of this, is there no such thing as constructive criticism?
My next blog will be a sample from a series of Sales Lessons, written a few years ago.