Criticising back

A few weeks ago I had an interesting experience, which served as a timely reminder.

After my seminar was finished, I had a quick look at the seminar evaluations. The feedback was very good except one participant gave me an average feedback and made a comment that I didn’t do well in engaging all seminar participants. I do take my feedback very seriously. Accept others’
opinions, but, like most, my ego is hurt when being criticised. I give credit to the participant because she signed the form. So, I knew the source of the feedback. The seminar participant happened to be a very withdrawn person and continuously sending and receiving SMSes during the seminar.

As I left the seminar venue, I happened to see this seminar participant. I thought that I should have a talk with her. My intention was to make, firstly, clear that I fully accept her feedback and in no way question it. After all that was her opinion. On the other hand I also wanted to help her to see that she has chosen not to participate actively and was also very frequently involved with her SMSes. So, she should engage herself actively and not wait to be engaged. I intended this to be good advice for her in general (not seminars). It is a matter of being active or chose to be passive.

Well, not surprisingly, the conversation didn’t go very well. I couldn’t get my point across. If I read her correctly, she took my approach more like I couldn’t accept her criticism. Reflecting on the issue I need to recognize that is a standard situation.

Takeaway – If somebody criticises you and you feel the need to point out a few shortcomings to the other person, even with you accepting the criticism and you having the best intentions to help, typically, it doesn’t work. I just sounds defensive. We need to wait for a better time to give the relevant feedback.