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Criticism or counseling! What is your choice to deal with, when people make mistakes? If you are in a superior position, then it matters a lot! When subordinates or juniors make mistakes, we generally treat them in any of these two ways.
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One we criticize them and make them realise the cost of their mistake. And another way to understand the reason why have they made mistakes and then counsel, guide them to avoid such mistakes in future.
What happens in the first scenario, in the future, these subordinates will always take extreme care while taking any action and probably will never perform to the fullest of his or her capability. They will always have fear of criticism if they make any mistake.
In the second scenario, they will take more care and improve their performance. They will probably strive for better in their deeds.
One scenario breaks that person while the other makes that person strong emotionally.
It’s quite common that nobody comes to the workplace to harm a company or business. But while taking action/decision mistakes happen and sometimes cost the business. We must learn from such mistakes, avoid criticism, and move on to grow the business.
People Remember Mistakes
People generally don’t see good things but most of the time remember or highlight the mistakes of others. When such culture spreads across the workplace, the effects are not seen soon but after few years. People work in fear to avoid criticism if they make any mistake. In such case organization never utilize their employee true potential. Such organizations will always have mediocre performance, they hardly outperform. If they do some time, then because of fear. With fear, this performance cannot last long.
Don’t Conclude on First Information
Don’t conclude on first information about whose mistake it is. Many a time I have seen that we try to conclude on the situation based on the first information. But later after carrying out a complete root cause analysis, the findings are completely different.
If at all team member has made mistake, do 1:1 counseling, never criticise in public. If you criticize in public, that person will break morally or answer you back abruptly. These emotions don’t stop at the workplace but continue in their family relationship. Very few people are emotionally strong to leave such issues at the workplace before entering the home.
Generation Gap
Today’s generation is quite different. They are very quick at decision-making. Their family background is good. Their parents might have gone through hardship and some time humiliation in their professional careers. But now the situation is different, they are not working only for money. They are one generation ahead and have different aspirations. They are not worried about the home, car, money for investment like their parents used to.
Criticisms Always Return
Dale Carnegie has shared some of the real-life examples on how to deal with criticism in several books. The below reference is from the book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’.
John Wanamaker, the founder of the stores that bear his name, once confessed: “I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.”
Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but we still do not want to accept the fact that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be.
Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.
F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior.
There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers, blaming everybody but themselves. Let’s realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, will say: “I don’t see how I could have done any differently from what I have.”
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.
Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? “I will speak ill of no man,” he said, “… and speak all the good I know of everybody.”
Character to Forgive
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.-Carlyle
Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, at three hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering, he managed to land the plane, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt.
Hoover’s first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane’s fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fuelled with jet fuel rather than gasoline.
Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the loss of three lives as well.
You can imagine Hoover’s anger. One could anticipate the tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn’t scold the mechanic; he didn’t even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man’s shoulder and said, “To show you I’m sure that you’ll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow:”
Do not let arrogance go to your head and despair to your heart; do not let compliments go to your head and criticisms to your heart – Roy T. Bennett
