Be Improvement-Oriented

It's intrinsic. It is part of your nature. I'm speaking about your desire to want to improve, to want
to do better. Vocational theorists and psychological research tell us that people want to do their
best in tasks that are meaningful to them. Use your own experience to validate this point.

For example, if you love to play golf, I'm sure you do not need a pro to tell you to play your best,
although you will want the pro to tell you how to play your best. If you love to cook, I'm sure
you try to make the dish as tasty as possible, although you may need a recipe book and a few
cooking lessons to satisfy your taste buds.

The problem is that, for many of us, our desire to improve is stifled by the criticisms we receive.
Why? Because most of the criticisms we receive (or give) place a strong emphasis on the
negatives (if you have a negative appraisal of criticism). The criticized behavior is usually
defined as irrevocable. The recipient is told what he did, thus placing the action in the past; any
chance of change for the better is precluded. Since there seems to be little chance for
improvement, the recipient, in order to protect his self-esteem, defends his actions rather than
looking for ways to improve. The criticism loses its positive power.

Furthermore, whether or not one feels that people lack an inherent wish to improve, the fact
remains that a constant barrage of negative criticism will undermine any recipient's confidence,
making it difficult for him to believe he can do the job. Interest is diminished. Many educators
and much educational research testify to the point that negative criticism (emphasizing the
negatives) given to a child in a particular subject will not only turn her off to that specific subject
but will also turn her off to trying to master and explore other areas.

Similarly, the sales manager who, after observing three presentations of the new sales recruit,
only emphasizes the negatives of each of her presentations, is doing a good job of convincing the
new recruit that she is in the wrong line of work. Her apathy will soon become apparent and, of
course, will draw more negative criticism from her manager. This is a bit ironic considering the
fact that the history of criticism tells us that one of criticism's most important functions is to help
one improve.

Do you—and those you work with—emphasize the negatives when it comes to criticism? Just
think about the last three times you were the giver or the taker of criticism. If you find that the
negatives are continually emphasized, then you can help yourself, those you work with, and
your organization become more productive by making your criticisms improvement-oriented.

Making criticism improvement-oriented creates the mental set of using criticism as a teaching
and educational tool. The task becomes to figure out, “How can she do it better? How can I help
her improve?” You begin to formulate specific ways in which you can help the recipient. You
become solution-oriented.

One way to make criticism improvement-oriented is to move the criticism forward, into the
future. Emphasize what the recipient is doing or can do, not what he did. Instead of telling your
new recruit, “You did a poor job in presenting the data,” which is sure to prompt recipient
defensiveness, try, “In your next presentation, use better overheads to show the data. It will help
clarify your points.”

The latter improvement-oriented criticism not only offers a helpful action to take but focuses on
the fact that your new recruit is going to get another chance; you communicate the confidence-
building message, “I trust you to succeed.”

Change becomes possible because you stress how the recipient can do it better next time. And
this lets the recipient feel secure in knowing she will get another chance. She can also feel
confident because her critic believes she has the ability to do the job. With this in mind, your
trainee can begin to focus her energy on improving her future performance rather than on
defending past results. Criticism becomes a put-up instead of a put-down.