A BETTER Way to Handle Criticisms

I'm sure that if you are in sales, customer service, management and specialists positions, you would have received your fair share of criticisms. In fact someone told me that if a day passes by without any criticisms, he will feel unease. Indeed criticisms is a way of life and if you cannot tolerate criticisms your life will be very miserable. As a trainer coach I have learnt to better handle criticisms in the acronym BETTER (Bother, Educate, Tell, Touch and Response).

Bother
Yes, the fact that they criticise shows that they bother about us, that is, they are not ignoring us or just treating us like dust. When someone bothers with me, the minimum I can do is to bother with them. Thus I cannot ignore their criticisms, I would take out my smartphone and start keying in what they said. Such enthusiastic behaviour will definitely catch their attention

Educate
That criticism is actually an education from them, it is human nature to want to educate people. I know that the highest gift of a human being is to be able to learn from another human being. So when someone wants to educate (criticise) me for free, I would receive it willingly!

Tell
People like to tell people off or tell me what they think. and such tell-tale signs may reveal that they are the expert and want us to respect them like they are a guru. Anyway the ears are mine and if anything they say do not make sense to my little brain, I just filter it out (but don't let them know).

Touch
When someone criticizes you, why not see that criticism as a way for that person to touch you? Just open your heart and let him touch your heart, but don't let him touch your body though (unless that person is a lady)

Response
The purpose of criticizing you is to evoke a response from you. And the best best response you can give is simply, "Point noted". Do not argue or defend, for that means you are going against them, which will provoke them to criticize you further (for bad attitude).

So in short, when someone criticizes you, they Bother to Educate you, so you must let them Tell you and Touch your hearts and Respond positively.

By Andy Ng, happy being criticized! List of courses here. Related articles:

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