While some people can stay very calm in the face of criticism, some people get angry and shine immediately. While you may have your own understanding of why this is so, scientists and researchers may think differently.
There are many scientists who are researching to explain this situation. For example, Jay T. Knippen and Thad B. Green, in their study in the USA in 1996, realized that understanding why we dislike criticism is the first step in dealing with criticism. As a result, they developed five steps to deal with criticism. In this article, we have discussed their more systematized form.
There may be a “feeling of worthlessness” behind your inability to resist negative criticism.
One of those who do research on criticism is Dr. David Burns. Dr. Burns is a cognitive behavioral therapist and author of Feeling Good. According to the author, what upsets us is not actually the negative reviews. What triggers these negative reviews are our beliefs about ourselves. Let’s make it concrete with an example:
Let’s say you work in a store and a customer makes a potentially bad review of you. The first thoughts that come to your mind are “Even the customers realized that I was useless”, “They are going to fire me for sure.” According to the author, it cannot be said that you are very good at dealing with criticism. Here, the pre-acceptance of “I am worthless, I am useless” is triggered by the customer’s comment.
Criticism management begins with the empathy step.
In this step, Knippen and Green stated that empathy is important in trying to understand why the person who criticizes us is speaking to us in this way. Dr. Burns also started from this and mentioned that this creates a feeling that he is listened to and understood in that person. He emphasized that we can do this by asking him questions.
Let’s continue with our example: Customer “How incompetent you are, they pay you for nothing here.” make such a harsh comment. In this step, “Why do you think I am incompetent, how do you think this job should be done?” When we ask questions such as; most of the time, the other person may remain silent because they do not expect an answer.
The second step is to accept criticism and make it vulnerable.
Dr. According to Burns, in this step, we should try to make the critic feel that we are not his enemy, but that we are actually on his side. The technique we will use for this may be to focus on the points we can agree with.
Let’s continue with our example: In the previous step you tried to understand him and questioned why he thought you were incompetent. To this the customer says, “You are working too slowly. I’ve been waiting in line for two hours. How is this service?” Let’s pretend you said. “Yes, you are right; It’s a bit crowded today and we have limited staff, so you had to wait in line for a while.” You can make him feel that you are with him with a sentence like. In this way, the critic can no longer perceive us as enemies and can communicate with us in a more understanding way.
Sometimes there is a grain of truth in criticism and emphasis is placed on things that need to be changed.
Dr. According to Burns, when these steps are followed, criticism often ends before reaching this step. However, if it has come this far, the critic may be waiting for a promise of change from you. Once you decide whether the criticism is justified or not, it’s up to you to make changes or not. If you don’t want to make a change, you need to express it decisively.
If we want to express decisively that we will not make any changes in our example, we can continue as follows: “Due to our store policy, we can only employ a certain number of personnel, so it is not possible for us to increase the number of our personnel. But if you don’t like to wait in line, you can prefer Tuesdays and Thursdays when the customer density is relatively less for shopping.”
We have a different strategy for people whose aim is not to criticize but to spoil you.
In this step, Dr. According to Burns, praising these people a little, starting the sentence and saying, “You’re right, this is a very important point; let’s explore how it could be better, together.” We should direct our students to research and learn the truth with sentences such as:
In our example, this can be done using sentences such as: “You’re right, this is an important issue; If you want, let us know in writing how we can manage this intensity while we talk to the store management in the coming days and try to find a solution. When you give your suggestions to our friends at the cash register, they will forward them to us.”
Note: There may be criticisms that you can’t manage after following these steps. Sometimes you may come across people whose sole purpose is to attack you and your identity. But Dr. David Burns says you can master criticism management up to 90% using these techniques.
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