On Accepting Criticism

Whether you find yourself in any of these following scenarios - 

• You are presenting your model to your professor
• You are presenting your work to your boss
• You are presenting your designs to a client
• You are describing a project idea to your editor or collaborator
• You are discussing a business venture with your partner
• You are reviewing a project schedule with your team
• You are discussing material shortages with the contractor
• You are seeking approval from an architectural design committee 

…you need to be prepared to hear a different opinion from your own. 

As architects we collaborate constantly and on so many different levels. Our profession is so complex that entire teams of experts and professionals need to be involved for a single project to be realized. Of course there will be differences of opinion and personality along the way. The key is not to take it personally, but how when so much of our work is so intimately connected to our egos. The long nights, the dreaming up of ideas, our style, our sweat, everything that goes into it. So how do we do it? How to we begin to manage this fine line between accepting criticism and defending the integrity of our designs? How do we allow dialogue on a topic and maintain fluidity and flexibility while keeping focus and moving the entire project forward? How do we show respect to our clients and team members while at the same time communicating our own beliefs and position? What battles are worth fighting for? What lines must absolutely never be crossed?

These are some issues I want to address in this article. I will try to draw on personal experience and some real life examples to help navigate. 

Let’s start with the obvious. Whomever you are talking to should be focused on your work or project. Not you, not the weather, not the politics or any other surrounding issue they might be facing that day. There needs to be level of professionalism. I say that because there might be an attempt to discredit your views for whatever reason on the basis of some external factor which is never acceptable. It would be best if this occurs to not even engage as there is no point having an argument or discussion on anything but the work itself. 

Next, let’s make sure that the presentation itself is concise and clearly demonstrates what you are trying to accomplish. There is so much that can get ‘lost in translation’ through misplaced labels, poorly produced presentation materials, even different communication styles. It would be a shame to lose track of your main point just because of what essentially comes down to being a misunderstanding. 

One strategy I like to employ when presenting designs to a client is some design variation so that they would have a choice in the decision making process. We tend to present two or three options. But not too many as that can lead to other issues and frankly total chaos very quickly. Too many options tend to open doors to indecisiveness and delays. A rabbit hole you don’t want to go down. For an interior layout we will show a variation in the location of the stairs for example. Or with furniture show three different selections for a seating area. That sort of thing. Most likely a client will pick one and run with it. What is important in this gesture is that you are in some way asking for their opinion, polling if you will and allowing for participation. And people appreciate it because they feel more engaged and that their opinion matters to you. In effect you are building trust and raport. After you do this a couple of times the client will start to know and understand your design aesthetic and your thought process and will trust you more until they might even defer to you for your opinion entirely. 

In an academic setting it is a lot more about the discourse for the professor or instructor to understand your thinking process, your development as a designer and as a thinker and your understanding of the problem or task. Their role is to help you expand your thinking and allow you to comprehend a broader understanding of the problem itself and the potential solution pool before getting to your final outcome, design and/or project presentation. A critique is never an attack on your personal style but is always offered in an attempt to enrich and educate. And ultimately collaborate. In some way it is all a practice run for working with others… 

Other times in a more professional setting or even more specifically a finger might be pointed at you for an error in the contract drawings. That’s OK too. I always tend to think that we are all #inittogether and whatever someone has to contribute at any stage of the project is always there to help all of us work at our highest level, achieve our highest potential and produce the best outcomes for the project. There is so much information that we communicate through the contract documents that occasionally there may be a typo or error in them. Other times there might be an accusation that is specifically derived to discredit your efforts or in an attempt to elevate a different player. Or out of pure confusion. Keep your calm. First, try to understand where the confusion lies and try to look for answers together as a team. Spend the time and hear everyone out. More often than not there will be some sort of misunderstanding somewhere along the lines but your calm demeanor and leadership in doing just this will be sure to shine. 

Case in point, when a PM on the contractor’s team tried to accuse our team some odd years ago of having misrepresented the height of the building we sat down with the Owner Rep and the PM to look at the contract documents page by page to understand where the confusion lied. The problem was that the said PM was using the ‘top of structure’ term off of the structural set of documents but not the architectural set where we clearly indicate the height of the building. The contractor was misplacing the terms that resulted in the confusion. Additional construction details showed the structural beams, the roof parapet and all the insulation details. Once we go to the bottom of this it was somewhat foolish for the PM to be making the statements that he had and we came out looking even better than before. Our calm demeanor and solution oriented attitude gained us more clout on the project than we had before. I also love that a situation that was unpleasant at first turned out to be something that would bring us all closer together and raise the awareness and respect on the project. 

This is all critique is essentially about - taking the disagreements, the disapprovals and the misunderstandings and achieving higher levels of understanding and design excellence as a result of it. Sometimes this is not possible and we must go back to our drawing boards, we must reevaluate and even part ways but always we have an opportunity to learn something from it. 

One way to think of it is quality control or peer review and this is something we can as designers and architects even incorporate into our process from the getgo. Thinking about and encompassing many different perspectives and opinions is what we should do anyways. Other times it will come down to an executive decision, a strong stance and a very definitive direction. Like a lobby design or some other critical aspect of the building without which the whole project just wouldn’t make any sense. I would invite you to in these circumstances stand your ground as it will benefit the project as a whole even if you might be the only person understanding it at the time. But again, keep your calm, present your case and the right person will back you up. 

Finally, design is by its nature so personal that it is so hard not to take criticism personally. We find it very hard to separate our own being from that of our work as if were our own child. We must however make that leap and separate our egos from what intrinsically belong to all of humanity and is made for its betterment and to promote its evolution. Much of architecture at any scale is all about this. Let’s give it a shot and learn to share in its creation.

So, how do you take criticism? And do you think you might react next time you are engaging in a discourse about your work or project? Let me know in the comments below...