How to Criticize Someone.

So how do you communicate criticism to colleagues, people you work with, associates? This is a very difficult form of communication. Let me give you some tips that I found highly successful. First of all, it's always better if someone has asked you for feedback or if it is officially a part of your job to do that. Now, my job as a public speaking coach and a media trainer, by definition, people are hiring me to give them criticism, so it's a little bit easier. But some of the principles I'm going to go over with you will help regardless. For starters, and I'll just use my own example, someone sends me a video of themselves giving a speech or a media interview, and they ask for criticism. I watch the video, but I make very careful notes on things they're doing well, or at least things they're not messing up the way most people do. I do, of course, make notes of deficiencies, what I don't like, what I don't think is effective. But here's a typical way I would give a critique. Sandy, thanks for sending the video. I've looked at it. The good news is you have many strong fundamentals as a communicator. Your volume is fine, your speaking speed is good, you're conversational, you're moving your head some. That's good. And your face is moving. I'm not hearing ums, uhs, and ers, and you knows. So you have many, many strong fundamentals as a communicator. So I lay the groundwork now. Now they're feeling a little relieved. And I'm also being specific enough that I'm telling them praise they haven't heard before. So they now think I'm a genius. This guy's obviously smart. He's telling me all these things I do well, and no one's ever said that before. Algo is deep, deep as I can into specific detail of things they're doing well and also pointing out common mistakes other people have that they're not making. And I am being honest. I'm not just puffing them up to puff them up for, you know, to make them feel good. Although I do want them feeling less tense than when they started the conversation, the meeting, or the phone call. Now I transition to the criticism and I'll say something like, I do see a few areas for improvement. For starters, I see that your body is somewhat frozen. If you moved your shoulders, moved your body from the waist up, move your hands more, you'll actually look a lot more comfortable, confident and relaxed. And I've seen you when you're Just here talking in the same room, and you actually do all those things. So I'm not asking you to do anything new or to act. I'm just asking you to do what you normally do. So that will help a great deal. I'm also noticing that your eyes are darting back and forth between the reporter and the camera. They're going back and forth and that's making you look shifty eyed and therefore less believable. And I'll demonstrate that whether I'm in person in a room with someone, or doing it by Skype video or recording a video. So the good news is these flaws are easy to fix through training, and I'll show you how to do it. So my conclusion is you have strong fundamentals. The areas where you need improvement are all, frankly, common. Areas in need of improvement are easily fixable with training. And I'd love to work with you. So that's a typical way I criticize someone, and it generally goes over very well. I start off with some praise, I deliver the criticism, and I end up on a positive note. Some people call that the donut. You can say it's cliched and you've heard it a thousand times before, but you know what else you've heard before? Someone just trashing you, someone just criticizing you, someone just saying, why did you do it like that. That's even more common, that's even more cliched. And that's unfortunately the problem with criticism is people can say they want it, but if you just hit them over the head with it directly, they defend themselves. And they defend themselves by shutting down, by trying to figure out what's wrong with you. If you start off by telling them what their strengths are, it's harder for them to really think about why you're wrong, because they're already preconditioned to think about why you're smart. So that's my advice on the best way to criticize someone, whether it is a close associate at the office, a client, a customer, or even a family member.