The Best Defense Is to Listen

Nobody likes to be criticized. Unfortunately, defensiveness does not

serve you. It encourages you to ignore potentially useful feedback,
which inhibits your ability to improve. Know that you are capable, and
show it. But do not fi ght criticism merely because you can.
ED MADE IT to the executive level. He was vice president of sales for a
well-established communications company.
A bad year in sales hit the company hard, and layoffs reached all the
way to senior management personnel. Ed found himself sending out
résumés for the fi rst time in twenty years.
What he experienced was all manner of rejection—from being completely
ignored to being told he was overqualifi ed for the positions he
applied for. “I could do some of these jobs in my sleep. I couldn’t believe
I was sitting in front of some pipsqueak in human resources needing
their approval,” Ed says.
“My friends were sympathetic, but they told me I needed a new attitude,”
he recalls. “Knowing I should have these jobs, and then treating
the process as if it was beneath me, was not going to convince anyone I
was the right person for the job.
“They were right, and until I got past what I felt like doing and began
to see what I should be doing, I didn’t get anywhere.”
Ultimately Ed, and his new approach to things, landed a job—ironically
enough, in human resources.
Defensiveness is negatively correlated with learning on the job. People with
highly defensive personality traits speak more times in meetings, are more
likely to interrupt a speaker, and are one-fourth slower in adapting to new
tasks. (Haugen and Lund 1999)