Start with Praise

So how do you in fact deliver criticism to someone who wants it and needs it.

Well I would urge you be very cautious if the first thing out of your mouth is criticism.

You may be completely right but you’re going to arouse people’s defense mechanisms and they’re simply not going to be receptive to you.

So I’ll share with you the strategy I use in my own primary business which is presentation training and media training.

So for example if I record someone giving a speech and every other word out of their mouth is.

Are and it’s obvious that they seem nervous and uncomfortable and everyone else in the room is ignoring what they’re saying because they’re now counting the US in arms.

It’s obvious this is a big problem.

But if I simply start with hey jim you sound like a complete idiot with all the arms you said One hundred and twenty seven times.

It’s so annoying.

It’s awful.

It’s really cutting against your whole message.

Everything I said would be true but it would be completely worthless just because I know it’s awful it’s all I shouldn’t ever speak again.

It puts people in such a fight.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about personal psychology of individuals.

People say they want criticism.

They don’t.

People want to be praised.

People want to be loved.

They want to be told they’re great and deserve raises.

I know that’s what I like.

I love it when people tell me i’m great and offer to pay me more money.

So I’m not holding herself out as above anyone else.

And people have mixed feelings about criticism on the one hand most of us myself included we all realize we could be better.

We want to improve.

We live in a self-improvement culture.

And yet we still don’t really like criticism because there’s a part of us that says hey T.J.

you said I said on.

But you know your hair’s fallen out and you have beady eyes.

You set up a defense mechanism in the person you’re trying to help.

If you’re too abrupt launching right into criticism.

So my suggestion always and I do it in my own practice is look at what they’re really trying to do.

For starters what is their goal.

If someone is saying US and ums a bunch when speaking their goal is to actually communicate to an audience whether it’s three peers at a staff meeting or a thousand people at a major trade association convention when they’re giving a speech look at their goal what is it they’re trying to do the next thing I try to do is list every single thing they’re doing well and you can do this to try to chronicle someone’s strengths because everybody loves praise as long as it seems sincere and meaningful.

So for example when I am critiquing someone’s speaking skills and they are saying constantly I still analyze everything else about how they speak and I try to come up with a long list a legitimate list of what they’re doing well.

So that’s the first step.

Chronicle every single thing they do well.

So in this case I would say to the person well Sam you’re speaking speed is good.

A lot of people who are nervous speak too quickly.

Your speed is good.

That’s good.

Your volume is good.

A lot of people get uncomfortable nervous and their volume shrinks and they’re speaking so softly No one can hear them.

And Jim I’m noticing that you’re gesturing Well that’s good.

Nervous people hold their hands or they play with pens.

I like that you had some good hand movement.

So I’ll go through and I’ll list as many as 20 things that the person did well now to the casual observer they’re not even noticing any of that because the arms were so annoying.

I don’t talk about the arms yet.

I just focus on their strengths.

And it may be that they had something interesting to say.

It may be that they put good pauses into their presentation so the hard part is not letting myself get distracted by this one ugly horrible thing they’re doing this one huge floor of the arms every two seconds.

Now typically at this point the person says Yeah well I want to know what did I do wrong.

How can I get better.

What’s bad.

People asked for their weaknesses but I find if you just hop right into the weaknesses it’s too abrupt they shut down.

It either depresses them or it makes them hate you and it depresses them.

Neither one of those is good.

So I always start by chronicling a person’s strengths in the category that we’re dealing with now.

You may be managing someone who has problems talking to customers over the phone and you may want to talk about all the good things they do when they’re talking one on one to customers who come to your store come to your office or all of the things they do well speaking to fellow employees or colleagues talk about their strengths as communicators.

Before you go go right to that criticism of my God you’re so rude obnoxious in your cursing at the clients on the phone and hanging up on them.

That’s crazy.

You’re going to be fired.

You can’t just go to the negatives.

So start by chronicling the positives in the case of my colleague with the public speaking issues.

I may spend 10 minutes just going through everything they do.

Now this is important for several reasons.

Number one it relaxes that it’s always more relaxing to hear people tell you what you do well and it’s legitimate and it’s meaningful.

It can’t be you telling me T.J.

You have the prettiest thick dark curly hair I’ve ever seen.

It can’t be something that seems like total B.S.

It always has to be rooted in reality and you have to be sincere.

I don’t give credit I don’t give praise to anyone unless I legitimately mean it.

But also remember the bar can be low.

If I’m giving somebody credit for speaking with a good volume that’s not that hard because most people have OK volume when they’re speaking it’s the bottom 20 percent.

So who lower their voice and they sound scared and timid and not everyone rocks in a way that makes them look nervous.

But for someone who doesn’t rock I’m happy to give them praise for not committing other common blunders.

So the first beauty of starting off with something positive is that you relax.

The person number one.

Number two your credibility goes sky high because they can tell you’re really paying attention to them and you must be brilliant because you’re telling them things that are specific seem real that other people haven’t mentioned.

So when I put it when I praised this speaker who says all the US and I’m being legitimate I’m being honest and I’m probably telling them 20 things they’re doing well maybe 10 of them are things they’ve never thought about before and no one else has ever praised them on that.

So they now think I’m a genius.

They think I’m a nice guy and I’m a genius for telling them all the specific things that they do.

So my credibility is very very high and that’s why I urge it’s the first important step is you’ve got to look at the general nature of the issues involved.

In my case if somebody says arms it’s how they speak and communicate.

In your case it may be.

How does an employee treat other employees or how does this person deal with clients over the phone.

You’ve got to pick the subject matter but then you’ve really got to do an exhaustive analysis of what this person is doing well and lay it out.

It’s critically important relaxes them makes them receptive to the criticism that comes makes them feel comfortable with you.

And it makes them feel like you are legitimate.

You legitimize your expertise.

If you’re spotlighting what they are doing well because then if you have criticisms later it just seems a lot more legitimate.

So that’s the first step.

And that’s against our nature.

The easiest thing to do especially if your boss is a Smithers don’t do that.

Sally you’re a pig there clean up that mess.

Hey do the easy thing to do is to just go right to the criticism.

But it’s not really the most effective.

I’m not asking you to lie.

I’m not asking you to make up stuff.

I am asking you to take the extra step really analyzing every single thing this person does in this niche and writing down or at least thinking about what it is they do.

Well so you can tell them.

So that’s your first step.

I need you to think of some employee you have to criticize.

You have to manage and I need you to come up with a comprehensive list of everything they do well.

Do that now.