Start with Praise to Open Ears and the Heart

• 00:04 So what do you do if it's a part of your job to help your employees,
• 00:08 help colleagues, even bosses improve?
• 00:11 If it's part of your job to criticize people?
• 00:14 Now here's the thing, it's easy to criticize and
• 00:18 people tell you they want criticism.
• 00:21 People will tell you give it to me straight, give me the feedback,
• 00:23 I want to hear it.
• 00:24 Guess what, they're liars.
• 00:26 Not necessarily to you, and people do want to improve, but
• 00:31 often people are lying to themselves.
• 00:34 People don't want criticism.
• 00:35 They want praise, they want to be loved.
• 00:38 So if you do give criticism, quite often they resent you for it.
• 00:42 Well, I'm here to tell you,
• 00:44 there is a way of delivering criticism that isn't sugarcoating things, but
• 00:50 does in fact deliver the message, but in a way that doesn't hurt everyone.
• 00:55 Hurt the person you're talking to and hurt you in the process.
• 00:59 So that's what this course is about, let's hop right in now.
• 01:04 So how do you, in fact, deliver criticism to someone who wants it and needs it?
• 01:10 Well, I would urge you be very cautious.
• 01:13 If the first thing out of your mouth is criticism, you may be completely right,
• 01:18 but you're going to arouse people's defense mechanisms.
• 01:23 And they're simply not going to be receptive to you.
• 01:26 So I'll share with you the strategy I use in my own primary business,
• 01:29 which is presentation, training, and media training.
• 01:32 So, for example, if I record someone giving a speech,
• 01:37 and every other word out of their mouth is umm umm urr.
• 01:43 And it's obvious that they seem nervous and uncomfortable, and
• 01:47 everyone else in the room is ignoring what they're saying because they're now
• 01:52 counting the ohs and ums.
• 01:53 It's obvious this is a big problem.
• 01:56 But if I simply start with, hey Jim you sound like a complete idiot
• 02:01 with all the ums, you said um 127 times.
• 02:05 It's so annoying, it's awful, it's really cutting against your whole message.
• 02:11 Everything I said would be true, but it would be completely worthless.
• 02:16 It would just be... I know it's awful, I shouldn't ever speak again.
• 02:20 It puts people in such a funk.
• 02:22 Here's what I've noticed about personal psychology of individuals.
• 02:26 People say they want criticism, they don't.
• 02:30 People want to be praised, people want to be loved.
• 02:33 They want to be told they're great and deserve raises.
• 02:36 I know that's what I like.
• 02:37 I love it when people tell me I'm great, and offer to pay me more money.
• 02:41 So I'm not holding myself out as above anyone else.
• 02:46 And people have mixed feelings about criticism.
• 02:48 On the one hand, most of us, myself included,
• 02:52 we all realize we could be better.
• 02:54 We want to improve.
• 02:55 We live in a self improvement culture.
• 02:59 And yet we still don't really like criticism because there's a part
• 03:04 of us that says, hey, TJ you said, I said uhh and umm.
• 03:07 But your hair's falling out and you have beady eyes.
• 03:12 You set up a defense mechanism in the person you're trying to help,
• 03:16 if you're too abrupt launching right into criticism.
• 03:20 So my suggestion always and I do it in my own practice is,
• 03:24 look at what they're really trying to do for starters.
• 03:29 What is their goal?
• 03:30 If someone is saying uhs and ums a bunch when speaking,
• 03:33 their goal is to actually communicate to an audience.
• 03:37 Whether it's three peers at a staff meeting or a thousand people at a major
• 03:41 trade association convention when they're giving a speech.
• 03:45 Look at their goal, what is it they're trying to do?
• 03:49 The next thing I try to do is list every single thing they're doing well.
• 03:56 And you can do this too.
• 03:59 Try to chronicle someone's strengths because everybody loves
• 04:03 praise as long as it seems sincere and meaningful.
• 04:07 So for example, when I am critiquing someone's speaking skills and
• 04:12 they are saying uh uh um constantly.
• 04:16 I still analyze everything else about how they speak and
• 04:20 I try to come up with a long list.
• 04:22 A legitimate list of what they're doing well.
• 04:26 So that's the first step, chronicle every single thing they do well.
• 04:29 So in this case I would say to the person, well, Sam your speaking speed is good.
• 04:35 A lot of people who are nervous speak too quickly.
• 04:39 Your speed is good, that's good.
• 04:41 Your volume is good.
• 04:43 A lot of people get uncomfortable and nervous and their volume shrinks and
• 04:48 they're speaking so softly no one can hear them.
• 04:52 And Jim, I'm noticing that you're gesturing well, that's good.
• 04:55 Nervous people hold their hands or they play with pens.
• 05:00 I liked that you had some good hand movement.
• 05:03 So I'll go through and I'll list as many as 20 things that the person did well.
• 05:10 Now, to the casual observer, and
• 05:12 they're not even noticing any of that because the ums were so annoying.
• 05:17 I don't talk about the ums yet.
• 05:20 I just focus on their strengths.
• 05:24 And it may be that they had something interesting to say.
• 05:28 It may be that they put good pauses into their presentation.
• 05:32 So the hard part is not letting myself get distracted by this one ugly,
• 05:37 horrible thing they're doing.
• 05:39 This one huge flaw of the ums every two seconds.
• 05:44 Now typically at this point the person says, well,
• 05:47 I want to know what did I do wrong?
• 05:48 How can I get better?
• 05:50 What's bad?
• 05:51 People asked for their weaknesses, but I find if you just hop
• 05:56 right into the weaknesses, it's too abrupt, they shut down.
• 06:01 It either depresses them, or it makes them hate you and it depresses them.
• 06:06 Neither one of those is good.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.