Steer Your Critics

Hey, it’s the business world, we all get criticism, and criticism can be something hard to deal with. We work with a lot of people who face the criticism that comes with presenting or speaking or team pitching, and learned a lot about how to steer the critics so that they’re helping you get better. So the way I learned this was watching an interview team, a sales pitch team, they’re going in to pitch a project, and when they felt ready, they brought in leadership and some mock audience, and they presented. And then they said, “So how’d we do?” They were bombarded from every direction with cart blanch feedback, and it was overwhelming; it was almost mean-spirited, except it wasn’t. People were trying to help, randomly. Now you can steer your criticisms; you can steer your critics. Tell them what it is that you want them to give you feedback on. For example, as a presentation team, I’ll relate it outside to regular business in a second, but presentation team might be really concerned that their message isn’t landing. So you might say, “Hey, listen, want to open it up for feedback; we’re really looking for feedback on whether our points were coming across. Were we concise? Did you understand what we were saying?” Well, have I not just steered my feedback from anything down to that? I might say, “Look, this is a group that’s really interested in stakeholder feedback. So you saw we were interactive; our goal was to make you feel listened to and heard. Did you feel that you were heard, and did you get the signs that your input was valued?” Well, I have just steered that feedback. So when we lead Q&A sessions, we don’t let it be random, “Hey, what do you think?” That is a recipe for a comprehensive personal assault. Instead, we steer the critic; you might give them three things. There’s three things we’re trying to accomplish: this, that, and the other thing. So let’s hear what you thought.” And you can also set that up at the beginning. “We’re going to give our presentation. Here’s what we’re wanting you to pay attention to.” I have steered to them to look and see if that is what they got, so I can set it up and steer my eventual critique from the audience. Now, when you go to the business world, this is something you can do with your boss, your co-workers, and your clients. Let them know what kind of feedback you’re looking for; paint a picture of the experience you’re trying to create. Paint a picture of the targets for your own self-development to a boss. And what you’re doing is you’re taking a world that might just be the comprehensive personal assault, and you’re organizing it and steering that critique so that the feedback you get can be organized a little bit more concise and manageable. And your critics can help you improve.