Crew Blog: Nobody likes being told that they suck at anything. But no matter how you dress it up, that’s what most of us hear when we receive criticism.
Not all of us deal with criticism the same way.
Some people are great at taking criticism and using it to improve their work while others may feel completely crushed by even the most minimal critical feedback. For me, receiving any kind of public criticism is likely to result in a lot of sweating and blushing (not the most ladylike response, I know).
8 comments:
Taking criticism well is definitely an important skill, especially in the theatre industry. People are always critiquing and giving feedback, which is often negative. It is important to not take everything so personally when receiving feedback. If you let criticism get to you then it will be very difficult to move forward and improve.
I am in between an internalizer and a self-convincer. I sometimes take criticism too harshly and personally. I need to practice not getting upset as much or believing everything I’m told is 100% true. I can be hard on myself sometimes and put myself down especially after receiving a negative comment. It is important to learn that criticism is often used to help a person improve in the future and become a better person or artist. Teachers want you to be the best you can possibly be and that requires telling you about your flaws, in order to fix them. Asking questions about feedback is very useful and it gives you a better understanding of what is being said.
First of all I love the title of this article! In a setting like Carnegie Mellon where getting criticism is an integral part of the learning process I think it really important that we understand the psychology of handling criticism. My personal way of handling criticism to simply just take it as it is. People tend to give criticism in an effort to help others make their work better. The tricky thing is many times criticism tends to come off as an attack on the work instead of a helping hand. The way that I have dealt with this is by continuously reminding myself that as scary or unapproachable the person giving criticism maybe they are ultimately trying to help. Their harsh tone is simply a façade, or at least that is what I tell my self. Nevertheless, it is very important to simply just be able to accept criticism because that is how you will ultimately grow as an artist.
This is a such a great article about dealing with criticism. It’s a bit longer than the average article on the blog, but it really covered everything from helping classify your type of response to criticism and how you can deal with it, and it included specific examples of phrases you might use. Of course they were still vague but criticism is so vastly different from subject to subject but at the same time very similar. If we can identify these similarities I think it will really help us to react better to the criticism and actually get something out of it. Namely, the most important similarity is that usually the critic is just trying to help you be better at what you're doing.
I think another important thing to keep in mind is that a criticism is just an opinion and everyone has their own opinion. Maybe the critic thinks this work of yours is ugly or sloppy in the case of an art piece or poorly written or whatever, but you are also entitled to your opinion. Only through talking to the person about why they think what they think and why you did what you did can you both get and understanding of the criticism and how you might do better in the future.
This article brings to light some pretty important ideas. It gives strong evidence of how are brains are naturally wired to respond to criticism, but also explains how we can learn to deal with criticism in a more positive manner. This is an incredibly critical skill in the arts industries, simply because no matter what you do, there will be people who don’t like your work.
Another interesting part of this is you can begin to see how important it is, from a managers perspective, to provide an environment that is conducive to having those who work with you understand that not everything is personal, and it’s really about the direction of the work itself, not the person. I think that this is often forgotten from the management standpoint, because people generally tend to follow the idea that if those who may work in a position below you and have to receive criticism from you should just suck it up and deal with it, which really may not be the most effective environment to be working in.
Wow, this article was definitely very accurate for me. I know that I take criticism less than optimally and I have gotten feedback for sometime now from various people that I should try to improve my reaction to constructive criticism. I feel that I am very much an internalizer. When I get criticized, even for the smallest things, they have a tendency to stick with me all day, despite their importance (or lack thereof). That being said, I think I'm pretty good about asking open ended and probing questions to get more feedback. I found the article's suggestion to separate criticism from the self to be rather novel though. I definitely associate criticism with my own personality now that I think about it. Hopefully, going forward I won’t get so bummed out about positive criticism and be able to apply suggestions even more effectively to my working style. I suppose I could be even worse at taking criticism and advice. I definitely think that I avoid throwing around blame and in general being a “defender.”
The greatest advice I was ever given was when working with difficult people, talk about their work, not who they are as a person. It’s an ideal that I myself don’t hold up to when receiving criticism. From the article, I fall into the Internalizer category, which has thus far proven to be counterproductive to my goal to grow to be a better artist. Based off the article anyone that falls into the same category wants to work toward to being a feedback seeker, but I think that best starts with changing my mindset of getting criticism on my work to getting useful feedback. Hopefully by starting with positively as the foundation there will be no negativity blocks in our way so that we can grow to our full potential. Lastly, this helps to prove that we all need to work on adjusting to the fact that it’s okay to make mistakes, that’s why we have come to college, but it’s up to our responsibility to learn from our mistakes and move forward.
Criticism is often helpful and in most cases it is a suggestion to make the pieces better than they are. However there are two very different types of criticism. One is helpful and constructive and one could be hurtful and actually harm the performance. I feel as if this article perfectly discusses the rights and wrongs of helpful and constructive criticism and how people react to each example. I find the information about the brain extremely interesting and I agree with the fact that in most cases, criticism comes across as threatening. I feel as if everyone should read this article to figure out how exactly they handle criticism specifically and how they could better themselves and open them up to constructive criticism. This article also helped me to realize how to properly give helpful and constructive criticism in a way that will prove to be beneficial to the performance rather than harmful to their brain.
I thought this article was extremely useful, especially since we are all going into a criticism heavy business. I think that my reaction to criticism varies depending on the arena, but could always use work. It is hard to separate yourself from your work, especially in a creative environment, as it is so irrevocably linked to your original thoughts or personal interpretation of an idea. I find that much like Ben, that criticism will stick with me long after it’s been given and not in a way where I am processing it healthily. I have also found that I am the type of person who tries to just suck it up and move on, and that isn’t helpful either, as you can’t learn anything from it.
This article as reiterated a lot of tools I think we all know exist, but have a hard time putting into practice. Hopefully, I will be able to use this reminder to my advantage.
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