Five ways to criticize better

Criticism hurts so well! Realize it!

"When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English Literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet to suicide."

These lines from Dale Carnegie's book "How To Win Friends and Influence People" are to be placed in every manager's cabin walls especially that of HR managers. Not because they do not know this, but quite often our so-called people-persons forget this while dealing with their employees under stressful conditions. HR professionals and many other top managers scold and criticize the subordinates in such a way that demeans, discredits and hurts those employees. It is not an uncommon scene in most of the companies.

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Not just in our companies, we can see this scenario even in our families. I am sure at least 7 out of 10 of you would have faced it in your families when your parents scolded you for what you couldn't achieve rather than appreciating you for what you have done. It just doesn't stop here. Even you would have criticized those around you many times. Do you remember the last time when you complaint to your mummy or servant or a waiter in a restaurant about how bad the food tastes in a very grumpy manner. How many times have you really appreciated them for the good food they have given you?

Yes, we humans always expect the best and our eyes first get the sight of what is bad. We often forget all the good that is around us. Fortunately or unfortunately, this behavior of ours is inscribed in our genes. However, we can practice to squeeze out the best of everything in a positive manner rather than a negative way. This is something which we all can practice in our daily lives.

The question is: Why should we focus more on constructive criticism than destructive criticism? The answer to this question can be derived from the below mentioned 5 points.

1. Focus on Actions rather than on Individual

Most often, the constructive criticism improves a specific behavior without personal attacks. Their self-esteem remains intact. Yes. It is very important to focus on actions rather than an individual while giving criticisms. Let us consider this example:

Manager: Ben, why the hell did you do all the work in this manner? It's really irritating that you are a very disorganized person. It is time that you learn to get things done properly.

Rather than being rude on Ben like this, the manager could have honestly tried to help Ben, listen out to his problems why his work is done that way and guide him to correct it and ask him for a more structured work approach. There is a huge difference between calling an employee disorganized and pointing out how the employee isn’t as structured as needed. The former makes an assumption about the person.

2. Don't make it a monologue

Any constructive criticism should be a dialogue and definitely not a monologue. In most of the reality shows, you can see judges giving criticisms to the participants. How many times have you seen a judge asking a participant and understanding why that person did that performance in a bad way? Without understanding the actual reason, how can we criticize a person for their bad performance. The person might not have had a good mentor, he/ she might not have had the proper tools to perform, he/she might have had personal problems which could not be sorted easily. Without knowing the core of the issue, what are you trying to correct? Do you think such feed-backs without understanding the person would have really improved their performance.

Same goes in our companies. Listen to your employees. Give them a chance to speak out their part of the story. They might have doubts to ask you. You might learn something that will help you tailor your feedback and advice to the employee.

3. Practice positive reinforcement

If you start criticism on a negative note, you can't expect the person to listen all that you tell and capture them into their brains and minds. If you can't expect this, it's definite that you can't expect them do any corrective action with regard. If you are honestly expecting a change from that person, appreciate what he/she has done great in the past. Then suggest what's wrong and where he/she has to change. End it again in a positive note. This method of appreciating for the past good deeds first, then criticizing the person and later again reminding and re-appreciating about the good is called a sandwich approach.

4. Take care of the tone and time

Even in history, we can see the greatest of the greatest people were hurt and their motivation to work was entirely thrown into dustbin just because of absolutely negative criticisms. If that's the case, what can we expect from employees in our companies who are working for 9-12 hours a day when they are hurt?

Therefore, whenever we are giving criticisms, it is very important to focus on our tone. Not just the tone of our voice, but the tone of our body as well. Our gestures speak a lot. If you are making a stern and angry face while giving feed-backs, that itself is more than enough for the person to come up with defenses and lead a discussion into a fight.

If you have to tell something important, time that you are expressing it is equally important as the tone in which you express it. Suppose if an employee has made a presentation and everyone else is appreciating him. However, you have felt that the employee has gone terribly wrong in a certain matter. Please understand, the right time to criticize that person is not immediately after his presentation when others are applauding him. He might lose his entire confidence at that time if you do it that way. He might even totally reject whatever you are telling if you criticize him immediately after his presentation. For certain discussions and criticisms, you need to have a sense of the apt time.

5. Be pin-pointed and don't globe around

Yet another important thing which we all have to focus while giving criticism is to be specific. You should not put the listener in a more confused state. You should give them clear and specific instructions by which that person will be able to take a proper corrective action.

For example, you have to correct your subordinate in email writing as he writes it with so many grammatical and spelling mistakes. You might tell him that you have to improve on your communication skills. You have to write better e-mails. However, the person might now be confused as communication is a very vast area. He might be thinking if he is bad in speaking or writing or both. Again, just by telling that he has to write better e-mails, he might not understand what mistakes he was making till then. So, it 's better to correct that person by giving instructions with more clarity. You can tell him that he needs to improve his email writing as it's structure is improper. You can tell him about the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in the previous mails. You can show him a sample if you honestly wants that person to correct it. It doesn't mean you have to spoon-feed that person but be specific with your instructions to that person so that he is in a better state to correct next time.

We can ensure that we are criticizing some one in a better way than we normally do by practicing the above mentioned five points. Remember that criticism should never be to hurt someone, rather it should be given to create a positive change in someone.

Let me remind you this again: Criticism hurts well! So, learn to criticize in a better way.

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