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Here you can post you playing the instrument of choice. If someone has to comment let it constructive criticism. Here are some tips.
Omit Character Traits
If you want your criticism to get the best out of someone, suppress the urge to attach one of his personality deficits to your critique. If you do start to bring up personality deficits, it’s likely he will interpret your comment as an ad hominem attack, causing your point to fall on deaf, insulted ears. It isn’t possible to entirely separate a person from their work, but your criticism should make that effort.
Frame Your Criticism In Appropriate Language
The very words you speak can make all the difference. Using terminology germane to the issue keeps constructive criticism on a professional level, beyond reproach. Furthermore, you can thaw out even the most severe criticism by tenderizing your language. Opening with “It seems to me…,” or “I could be wrong, but…” makes it less likely that your point is compromised by arrogance or rudeness.
Get Your Facts Straight
The efficacy of constructive criticism is in direct proportion to the credibility of its source. Conversely, few things can torpedo your authority more quickly than unknowingly basing your comments on factual errors. Facts in the form of criticisms that are impossible to dispute act as an arsenal of stealth weaponry. They can deliver your harsher critiques with surgical precision while never letting the person know that you’re launching them.
Keep Emotions In Mind And In Check
Offering effective constructive criticism requires you to neutralize any unreliable elements of emotion in order to blunt their influence. To a certain degree, you must take his feelings into account; it may not be possible to spare him some measure of embarrassment, but overt humiliation is mean-spirited and counterproductive. On the same token, your own feelings need to be kept in check; they are susceptible to bias and can be used to discredit you.
Focus On What Can Be Done, Not What’s Been Done
Refer to specific opportunities for improvement and avoid singling out inadequacies. Keeping your criticisms positive is both tactful and essential. It’s less disparaging for the person to hear that he has overlooked an opportunity than it is to be told that his current ideas are incompetent or defective.
Empathize
One of the more potent steps you can take before delivering constructive criticism is also among the simpler and more compassionate ones: Stop for a moment and remind yourself what it’s like to be in those shoes. You feel vulnerable, under direct attack and it’s human nature to become defensive in the extreme.
Utilize Reason, Not Personal Preference
Criticism of any kind bears an innate bias, but you can overcome that by remembering that comments grounded on reason are less open to counter-arguments, both valid and otherwise. It’s difficult for anyone to defend nonsense against the stability of logic, but it’s easy to dismiss criticisms dangled on the capriciousness of ”like” and “dislike.” Your credentials fade the very moment your comments begin to drift from authoritative conclusions into whimsical preferences.
Allow Time For A Response
It’s to your psychological advantage to pause between criticisms and allow the person a chance to explain himself. The act of offering an explanation, however weak it may be, is intellectually satisfying: It helps keep his ego somewhat intact while preventing him from becoming overwhelmed. Furthermore, you’ll come across as both fair and open-minded, increasing your credibility while decreasing the chance that any of your constructive criticism gets overlooked or forgotten.
Tell It Like It Is
Giving good constructive criticism will probably not win you too many immediate friends, but neither should it create a host of enemies. When delivered with a consistently proper balance of tact and authority, it will earn you something better: an enduring respect and a greater degree of productivity from the people around you.
Thank you for reading!
db
Omit Character Traits
If you want your criticism to get the best out of someone, suppress the urge to attach one of his personality deficits to your critique. If you do start to bring up personality deficits, it’s likely he will interpret your comment as an ad hominem attack, causing your point to fall on deaf, insulted ears. It isn’t possible to entirely separate a person from their work, but your criticism should make that effort.
Frame Your Criticism In Appropriate Language
The very words you speak can make all the difference. Using terminology germane to the issue keeps constructive criticism on a professional level, beyond reproach. Furthermore, you can thaw out even the most severe criticism by tenderizing your language. Opening with “It seems to me…,” or “I could be wrong, but…” makes it less likely that your point is compromised by arrogance or rudeness.
Get Your Facts Straight
The efficacy of constructive criticism is in direct proportion to the credibility of its source. Conversely, few things can torpedo your authority more quickly than unknowingly basing your comments on factual errors. Facts in the form of criticisms that are impossible to dispute act as an arsenal of stealth weaponry. They can deliver your harsher critiques with surgical precision while never letting the person know that you’re launching them.
Keep Emotions In Mind And In Check
Offering effective constructive criticism requires you to neutralize any unreliable elements of emotion in order to blunt their influence. To a certain degree, you must take his feelings into account; it may not be possible to spare him some measure of embarrassment, but overt humiliation is mean-spirited and counterproductive. On the same token, your own feelings need to be kept in check; they are susceptible to bias and can be used to discredit you.
Focus On What Can Be Done, Not What’s Been Done
Refer to specific opportunities for improvement and avoid singling out inadequacies. Keeping your criticisms positive is both tactful and essential. It’s less disparaging for the person to hear that he has overlooked an opportunity than it is to be told that his current ideas are incompetent or defective.
Empathize
One of the more potent steps you can take before delivering constructive criticism is also among the simpler and more compassionate ones: Stop for a moment and remind yourself what it’s like to be in those shoes. You feel vulnerable, under direct attack and it’s human nature to become defensive in the extreme.
Utilize Reason, Not Personal Preference
Criticism of any kind bears an innate bias, but you can overcome that by remembering that comments grounded on reason are less open to counter-arguments, both valid and otherwise. It’s difficult for anyone to defend nonsense against the stability of logic, but it’s easy to dismiss criticisms dangled on the capriciousness of ”like” and “dislike.” Your credentials fade the very moment your comments begin to drift from authoritative conclusions into whimsical preferences.
Allow Time For A Response
It’s to your psychological advantage to pause between criticisms and allow the person a chance to explain himself. The act of offering an explanation, however weak it may be, is intellectually satisfying: It helps keep his ego somewhat intact while preventing him from becoming overwhelmed. Furthermore, you’ll come across as both fair and open-minded, increasing your credibility while decreasing the chance that any of your constructive criticism gets overlooked or forgotten.
Tell It Like It Is
Giving good constructive criticism will probably not win you too many immediate friends, but neither should it create a host of enemies. When delivered with a consistently proper balance of tact and authority, it will earn you something better: an enduring respect and a greater degree of productivity from the people around you.
Thank you for reading!
db