Who is a critic, features of the profession, what does he do?

“You did great, you did everything just wonderful!” It would be nice to hear only such words. But in reality, rarely does a day go by without criticism. They make comments to us at work, at home, in transport, and anywhere. Since criticism cannot be avoided, you need to learn how to respond to it correctly. In this article we will look in detail at how to respond to criticism addressed to you.

Why do criticism hurt us?

Criticism makes us feel that our efforts are not appreciated, and that we ourselves are considered worse than we are. This causes negative emotions - anger, resentment. This reaction is inherent in nature.

But you shouldn't give in to emotions. We all know stories when one remark leads to a fight, family scandal or dismissal from work. In order to avoid getting into unpleasant situations, you need to know how to properly respond to criticism addressed to you. Moreover, criticism can be very useful. It can point out objective shortcomings and help prevent these mistakes in the future.

Most of all, criticism hurts perfectionists and people who are not very confident.

• Perfectionists strive to be perfect and do everything A+ the first time. But this doesn’t happen in life, and you need to try to take it for granted. Absolutely everyone makes mistakes, there’s nothing wrong with that. Moreover, shortcomings noticed by someone are a unique opportunity for development. After all, next time you will take into account the comments and will not allow them.
• People who are not very confident in themselves may take comments negatively personally. On the one hand, low self-esteem stimulates them to move forward and develop. But worries due to criticism take a lot of mental strength and can hinder development. Therefore, it is important to know how to react correctly to criticism so that it is only beneficial and does not unsettle you.

What personal qualities should a critic have?

Objectivity is the basic rule of a professional critic. Therefore, in order to perform his duties efficiently, a critic must, first of all, be an honest person who, in his judgments, will not be guided by a subjective attitude towards the author, but will give an impartial assessment of his work.

Since not everyone can perceive negative statements addressed to them adequately, people in this profession must have a sense of tact and carefully think through their reviews before they go out into the world.

Critics ( reviewers ) must thoroughly understand their chosen specialization, so a good memory is a mandatory quality, which will allow them to store large amounts of necessary knowledge. Based on experience and a wealth of knowledge, they regularly have to defend their own point of view with arguments and prove the correctness of their judgments, which requires persistence, courage and fairness from them.

Having taste, imaginative thinking and attention to detail will be as useful in this activity as memory. It is these qualities that distinguish an ordinary person from a professional. Thanks to these qualities, the critic will be able not only to look at the author’s works through the prism of centuries, but also to feel his vision of the world.

Types of criticism

Criticism can be fair, partly fair and unfair. Let's look at the different types and then look at how to adequately respond to criticism at work, at home and anywhere.

How to understand whether criticism is fair or not?

1. Delve into the essence of the critical remark; it is not always clear right away, especially when it comes to emotions. Ask clarifying questions if you cannot understand what exactly the problem is. Separate the other person's emotions from the facts. Just put aside your emotions. Focus on the facts.
2. Find out if the criticism is justified. Perhaps the person looked at your work diagonally, made the wrong conclusions, misunderstood something, or simply didn’t see it. Ask additional questions, ask the interlocutor to specify the problem. For example, indicate exactly where he noticed the error.
3. If the answer to the validity of the criticism is ambiguous, gather more opinions. The majority opinion will help you understand how objective the critic is in his assessment.
4. Ask yourself why the person is criticizing you, what is his goal. If this is your friend or loved one, he probably really wants to help. If this is a colleague with whom you constantly compete, he may be disingenuous.
5. Generalizations (“you are a bad worker”, “you don’t understand anything”), getting personal (criticism not of a specific action, but of your personality) are always unfair.

How to respond to fair criticism?

Fair criticism is of great value. It is she who helps you grow as a professional and as a person. To benefit from criticism, follow these tips:

1. Agree with the criticism. Speak calmly and kindly, without unnecessary apologies and self-accusations, but also without arrogance.
2. Do not give in to emotions, even if your interlocutor is seething. Carefully steer the conversation in a constructive direction. Ask questions, offer a solution to the problem.

Example 1.

Client: you didn’t understand the topic at all when you wrote the text!

You: please clarify what factual errors are in the text? I relied on product reviews that are available in open sources. They may not reflect all the important features of the product.

Client: Product A is not compatible with Product B!

You: I understand, I will correct this information. Are there any other factual errors in the text?

Client: apparently not, but about compatibility needs to be fixed!!!

You: yes, I’ll correct the text within an hour and send it to you.

Explanation: The client noticed an error that really upset him. Perhaps the client's reaction is not entirely adequate. But there really is a mistake. It needs to be fixed.

Example 2.

Client: you missed all the deadlines. How is this possible, I was waiting for work earlier!

You: yes, I sent the first part of the layouts a day later. But this will not affect the deadline for all layouts; they will be ready by September 20. You can break the work into smaller steps. For example, I will send the next 5 layouts by the 10th.

Client: yes, send by the 10th!

Explanation: you missed the deadline, this is really a problem. Since it is clear from the conversation that the client is very scrupulous about the timing of the project, offer to deliver the work in stages to make him feel more relaxed.

How to respond to unfair criticism?

Here, a lot depends on who exactly is criticizing you and how important your relationship with this person is.

Let's consider different options:

1. Switch your interlocutor from emotions to facts. Ask what exactly you don’t like. Ask alternative questions.
2. Calmly “return” criticism. For example, say: “I don’t think your comment is fair.”
3. “Rephrase” criticism in a constructive way. For example, if they tell you: “You always miss deadlines!”, answer: “Yes, I submitted this work a day after the deadline.”
4. Draw the interlocutor's attention to the weak points in the criticism, its illogicality and groundlessness.
5. React with humor. “Yes, I am like that, I’m surprised how the earth still carries me!” This is a great option on how to stop reacting to unfair criticism.
6. Let it fall on deaf ears. Especially if these are the words of a random passerby or driver in a nearby car.

How to ignore unfair criticism?

It happens that someone constantly picks on you for no reason. In this case, a possible response option is ignoring. For example, use the “aquarium” psychological technique. Imagine that you are behind glass, and the offensive words of your opponent do not reach you. Without listening, nod, assent, and at the same time continue to do it your way. This option is more suitable for everyday situations.

But there is a bolder and more effective technique. Ask directly - “Why do you constantly make comments to me?” If the purpose of criticizing a person is manipulation (he wants to make you feel guilty, incompetent) - with such a question you will reveal the manipulation, and in the future it will become impossible.

Example 1.

Client: the text needs to be rewritten, it’s terrible! Have you even read it yourself?

You: please clarify what exactly you don’t like in the text?

Client: I’m not happy with everything!

You: please look at the title of the text, do you have any suggestions regarding it?

Client: no!

You: first paragraph of text? Does anything need to be fixed in it?

Client: no, don't!

You: let's look at the second paragraph to see if anything needs to be edited here.

Client: okay, leave it like that already.

Explanation: the client did not like something, but he cannot say what exactly. Or he's just in a bad mood. Or he didn't want to pay for the work. Be that as it may, the client cannot formulate the reason for the dissatisfaction, which means that the criticism can hardly be called fair.

Example 2.

Client: fellow programmer, you are doing a sloppy job!

You: please clarify what you weren’t happy with at work? All functions specified in the technical specifications are ready and working correctly.

Client: where is the commenting on the site? There is no such function at all!

You: adding a commenting function was not in the technical specifications. If it is necessary, it can be implemented, the cost will be about X rubles, it will take approximately a week.

Explanation: the client simply did not fully understand your work. This happens often. It is necessary to explain (or remind) what is included in the service and what is not.

Why do people criticize

Criticism is about your attitude towards yourself, not towards others. A child is not born with an understanding of what is good and what is bad. All the emotions that a person experiences as an adult are how his parents taught him to treat himself. And their parents, in turn, were taught by their parents. And so on.

Criticism is often presented as caring, a desire to help and guide - but this is not so. People criticize because of their own fears and do it in order to reduce their feelings of pain and anxiety.

For example, parents scold their daughter because she is not a good student: “What a fool you are, you should go out less and sit more on your homework, Masha always gets straight A’s.”

Psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya says in one of her lectures:

— According to the latest forecasts, people who were born after 2000 will live up to 100–120 years. And you blow their minds because of a chemistry test. Maybe it's worth talking to children about the fact that they have a long life ahead of them, so that the child does not plan to jump from the roof because of a bad exam or unhappy love. And that if a child ever wants to learn chemistry, he will do it.

But parents themselves don’t like it when they are criticized and compared with others. And if they are told off at work, it is unpleasant, and they know that there is a reason for the bad result. It’s the same with children: scolding is wrong, right is asking questions: “Tell me, what’s wrong with your chemistry? What grade do you think you could get? What prevented you?” Or better yet, tell your child: “I don’t like chemistry, to hell with it. Let’s see what you like and do it.” But parents can't do that. They were also criticized in childhood, so then they criticize their children.

However, this is not the only reason why people criticize. Sometimes children adopt the attitude of their parents towards themselves. For example, Oksana calls herself a perfectionist, but this results in complete dissatisfaction with herself. The girl saw how her mother constantly scolded herself for not having time to do something, and got used to the idea that she must always manage to do everything and do it perfectly.

Criticism signals problems with personal boundaries. Personal boundaries are when a person feels where he himself ends and where another person begins. When there are no problems with personal boundaries, a person does not criticize others simply because he wants to, and the one who is criticized can fight back.

What are personal boundaries and why everyone talks about them - article in His

Critics often think that a person does not know about his shortcomings or mistakes. For example, a girl meets a classmate, and she says to her: “You’ve gotten really fat!” The classmate is confused, blushes and doesn’t answer. Here, both have problems with boundaries: the girl speaks her opinion, although she was not asked, and her classmate cannot defend herself.

How to quickly calm down if you are criticized?

To learn to calmly respond to criticism, you first need to be able to quickly pull yourself together. Before you say or do anything:

1. Count silently from 1 to 10 and back from 10 to 1.
2. Take a few deep breaths. Like at a doctor’s appointment: “Breathe. Don't breathe. Breathe."
3. Take a piece of paper and write down everything you think about this situation and this person. “Pour out” your emotions onto paper.
4. Draw an evil picture. Just take a pencil and scribble to your heart's content. What happens can then be torn up and thrown away - the negative energy will go away.
5. If you feel like you are boiling, stop the conversation if possible and return to it later. It’s better to retreat for a while than to mess things up. Leave the conversation under any plausible pretext.
6. Distract yourself in any way possible if you have the chance. Even in the office, you can leave the office for a while.

Let even the harshest critic, without knowing it, become your assistant. And it will give you the opportunity to improve even more professionally and personally.

Useful articles:

• How to relieve stress and calm your nerves in 5 minutes?
• How to force yourself to work if you have no strength or mood?
• What to do if the customer doesn’t know what he wants?
• How to tell a client that he is wrong?

Author: Valentina (KadrofID: 13) Added: 03/16/2018 at 16:35

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Comments (1)

Juliana (KadrofID: 114123)

Thank you, useful.

09.30.2020 at 11:50

Controlling

Controlling criticism usually comes from people who are trying to control more than just you.

They need to control everyone around them, life itself, because they have no trust in either people or life. When such people control everything they can, they become calmer.

This is their way of survival. It is of no use to tell them that their control is exaggerated or meaningless, because it is based on attitudes and prejudices that the person may not be aware of.

When a person controls others in everything, he does it under the guise of caring for the people around him.

But in fact, behind this concern lies the desire to make sure that everyone is under supervision, because it is unknown what these irresponsible people can do.

The controlling person creates unique programs and instructions for each and every person that must be followed.

If someone is self-willed, then his behavior is considered as betrayal.

Ultimately, when a person thinks that he can control other people, he calms down.

This is something that is important to know when you are faced with a person who is trying to control you.

If you simply protest, resist, and prove him wrong, his anxiety will rise along with it. He will perceive your words as an attack.

There is another common motive for controlling people: the desire to show how much they do for you, how the efforts of another person are invaluable to you.

This creates a sense of guilt and duty in the people being cared for. In this way, the controller tries to make others dependent on his efforts.

If you want to build a productive relationship with the controller, then your task is to calm the critic.

Here's an example of what a control critique looks like:

“You submitted the report on time, but did not indicate this and that in it,” the boss says to his subordinate.

“But they didn’t tell me about this; this was not indicated in the instructions for generating the report,” the employee replies.

— Was it really so difficult to guess that this was necessary? - the boss asks indignantly.

And then his subordinate becomes seriously puzzled. How can you guess everything that the leader considers necessary if he does not communicate about it?

It becomes clear that if the boss only needed precise execution of the work, he would have formulated the task differently.

Behind such criticism is a negative attitude towards a person, and the criticism itself cannot be called justified.

At its core, this is destructive criticism. If it were expressed by people with whom a person does not build relationships, does not plan a future, then it could be ignored.

But in this case, unpleasant words come from a significant person with whom it is not so easy to end a conversation.

I would like to receive criticism from my boss, which gives me the opportunity to improve my skills and gain useful experience.

But if this does not happen, then it is better to set yourself up to cool down.

Beneath controlling criticism lies judgment. The controller assumes that people are not aware of their actions, are not responsible for them, and can do whatever they want.

At the same time, the controller himself claims a higher status and proves to others that he is more experienced and smarter.

Ultimately, such a critic constantly claims to have the right to personally control and manage the people around him.