Critiquing others – furthering good ideas?
Just read an interesting article called In favor of tough criticism .
It’s a bit of a long read but well worth it. It’s especially timely as I am discussing testing dashboards with collegues and peers. I enjoyed the comments and I especially like the conclusion.
“The future of critical exchange stands at a crossroads. The increased reliance on faint praise, along with the rise of anonymity online, threatens to enervate the free flow of ideas in academe…. It is time for literary scholars to question their critical affiliations, to question behavior that encourages conformity over nonconformity; faint praise over pointed criticism; anonymity over transparency. Telling a colleague “You’re wrong” shows more compassion and collegiality than remaining silent—or hiding behind a cloak of anonymity.
We need to grow thicker critical skin. Why? Because critical behavior that always results in a chorus of affirmation is nothing more than conformity; because allowing views to persist that need to be challenged is nothing less than critical mediocrity; and because failure to tell our colleagues what we truly think about their work is simple dishonesty. A reshaped critical culture will help build a more robust, honest, and transparent academy.”
Even though the writing is focused on the academic world I think the ideas have usefulness outside that context. It made me think about the implications at work for direct reports, peers and bosses as well as colleagues in the technology industry.
What’s your thoughts on the situation?
- Critique (even if it’s harsh) to help your friend, employee, colleague, boss make a better argument or take the approach of “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything”?
- What is the proper forum for criticism – private, publicly or anonymously
- How does one prevent critiques from getting personal?
July 9th, 2010 at 11:09 AM
Well the problem is “getting personal” chances.
Is someone critiques a lot he is seen as annoying and the thus his reasons are not understood.
AW @Eusebui – Can you clarify what you mean?
July 9th, 2010 at 1:14 PM
Hey Adam,
Good topic to bring up, I often find that I do not get enough criticism despite the fact that I ask for it on a regular basis.
Everyone has heard the adage you brought up of if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all, it is one that I disagree with almost entirely. Criticism is a key component to the anyone (or anythings) improvement. When you start a new project it is criticized over and over again to reach the best final product possible, the same concept makes sense when applied to people.
As to how to deliver it, I would say it depends on the person. For most people private is usually the best bet, it is a more controlled environment and they wont feel they are being judged by others. The anonymous route is less useful in my mind because when I get criticism I always take into account who it is coming from to assess the credibility of it.
I think the best way to keep things from getting personal is just to have an open conversation with the person and tell them that you are not trying to bring them down, but in fact are trying to help them out and improve them.
One interesting side note, I have noticed (and it has been brought up to me) that a general trend is that people who are more confident in themselves and are higher performers can take a lot more criticism than those who are not. So this can actually be a good tool to see how others see themselves.
July 10th, 2010 at 4:25 PM
I think the article poses a false dichotomy. Perhaps it’s doing that on purpose, but if so, it’s too subtle for me.
Critics *aren’t* just people who “tell other people they are wrong.” The good critic is *not* someone whose goal is to get everyone else to see things his way. Good criticism is about the ideas themselves, not about the relatively shallow matter of agreement. We’re trying to make better ideas.
Imagine if I said that the goal of testing was to make my client agree with me about the status of the product? Sure, they might agree with me. I would hope they’d agree with me. But I can achieve agreement even if I do a terrible job of testing. My actual goal is to see the product clearly and communication useful information effectively.
– james
James – I agree with your first point and what it means to be a good critic.
For your second point. Imagine if my client said they wanted my professional opinion on the state of a software product and I didn’t give it to them. I cited that it wasn’t my job to give them an opinion – it was my job to give them the facts about the software. I would hope they’d agree with me but they might decide that regardless how great my testing was they wanted my professional opinion on the state of each feature in the product.
I’m doing a disservice by not providing an assessment/opinion given that my job is to “see the product clearly and communication useful information”. Wouldn’t you agree?
September 6th, 2010 at 1:32 PM
I agree with Steve – criticism is important, but it needs to be timely, and should be tailored to the audience whenever possible.
As for the severity of the criticism, that too needs to be tailored to the person, as well as to the severity of the situation.
Another important component when providing any kind of feedback, critical or otherwise, is trust. If the person on the other side of the table doesn’t trust you, then your feedback could end up falling on deaf ears. Likewise, if you don’t trust them to correct the situation, then they will feel less motivated or empowered to take action.