Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have been subject to criticism for any damn work and couldn’t arouse your critic’s attention on a rather special project of yours? In business and in general as well you need to be open to criticism and need to know how to behave on criticisms.

People face criticism from home, office and all around, we have prepared this draft to make you aware of the kind of criticism you face and how to handle them. Most critics are your benefactors as they constantly help you in improving and letting you know of your slightest faults.

Keeping this in mind we have made this post and tried to incorporate all possible situations of negative criticism and how to deal with them.

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What is Criticism?

Criticism is the judgment passed by others often after analyzing and evaluating the person’s work or merits and demerits. It is the expression of approval or disapproval of the persons work, generally used in disapproval. Criticizing is commenting someone on his work and pulling him down.

Criticisms are of many types such as consumerist, political, economic, ethical, sociological, psychological etc but broadly speaking we can categorize criticism as Negative & Positive.

Positive Criticism :

When a person criticizes your work in a positive manner then you know about your faults and demerits and at the same time get encouragement for your good work, this gives you an opportunity to work on your faults and get better with the work in future.

Negative Criticism :

When only demerits and mistakes are highlighted and even false accusations are made in order to tarnish someone’s image out of sheer enmity then that criticism is called negative criticism.

The Three main Questions: What? Why? How?

Before diving into the tips for handling criticism lets know about negative criticism and the reasons of negative criticism and how to know if anyone is aiming to defame you with them.

01. What is Negative Criticism?

Negative criticism is more slander than just commenting, when the whole comment is discouraging each and every aspect of the work and even providing false information to the target audience. That criticism is just harming you and giving a bad message in the market. Negative criticism is often made deliberately to dampen the image of the person/firm which causes much harm.

02. Why do People Make Negative Criticisms?

People make negative criticism out of envy and they are generally ‘sick’ and just want to make trouble, more often the idea is discouragement and getting the person in low-esteem. By discrediting people’s work and giving out irrational accusations is aimed at destroying the market.

03. How to Identify When You Criticized Negatively?

To identify people who criticize you negatively is important as it prepares you to understand your faults or to identify your foes. You must know which criticism is seriously taken and demands a reply and which ones are to be avoided.

How it is Helpful for Your Work/Skills/Business?

Criticism is always helpful; it can be helpful in knowing your faults, some serious mistake or even knowing the audience (you will know who like you and who are becoming enemies’). Over all its beneficial to have a commentary board.

• Creates Trust — Criticism creates trust in the content you post and it’s even better to have both negative and positive criticism. If only good things are written about something it’s hard to trust that and when supported by negative comments as well then it seems true.
• Feedbacks can Help in Making Critical Business Decisions — Go through the comments and understand the need and expectations of the audience and if you can follow the productive criticisms then wise decisions can be made to improve the business.
• Criticisms may Help Improve Your Design & SEO — Criticisms often have those words which might be active keywords and thus it often improve searches, or sometimes a “question asked” will get you higher up in search rankings because the same is present in your criticism.
• Negative Criticism Gives You Chance to Prove Yourself — When you address a particular criticism then you are not just addressing one person but to all your audience and prove that you do care about your readers views. It’s a great chance to build relationships and if you can turn negative criticism to positive criticism then you’re a winner.

Ahhh… I’m Way More Busy. Should I Ignore it?

You maybe a busy guy but do not undermine the importance of criticism in your business, as criticisms can do wonders for you. A positive comment can encourage other users to write positive things for you while a negative criticism can get you a bad name. Always check on the criticism your work is getting, this makes you aware of what others are thinking about you and accordingly you can act.

Criticism should not be ignored, especially if you are running a small firm as small businesses have more impact of negative comments, so start addressing your critics from today.

How to Handle Negative Criticism?

It’s essential to learn how to handle negative criticism well and keep your approach professional, negative criticism can be arousing and often difficult to handle as it tells you to think out of the box. Go through these points and you will be in a much better position to handle them.

Less-Effective/Not-So-Good Ways to Handle Negative Criticism

• Avoid any Tussle — Whatever happens never get into war of words, there may be instances when you have to face some really harsh comments but don’t lose your head over them as most are meant to be provocative and hardly serves any real purpose.
• Ignore Wherever You Can — Ignoring is a easiest way you can deal with many things. Why not ignore situations where badmouthing is happening, it’s immature to put oneself in the same shoes as that of his critic, if the critic is speaking really badly.
• Don’t be Misled to Anything — There are quite a number of times when personal attacks are made and irrelevant things are said, those acts are just to get the derail from the whole topic and get into something dirty, keep a control of your nerves and stay focused.
• Avoid One on One Talk — Avoid one to one answer to hateful critics as it doesn’t get close to any end, just wastes your time. If any miscommunication happens between two person things may get dirty, so avoid direct communication with your critics.
• Even if You’re Right, You Need to Justify — You need not necessarily defend on anything you do but surely you have to speak up once in a while for you need to shut up some time the loud once and get your actions get support of prevailing views.
• Let it Go, if it Doesn’t Work Out — If you find few takers then just shrug it off, after all you can’t satisfy the whole world. There still might be people who may not be close to satisfaction but you just have to move on.

Effective Ways to Handle Negative Criticism

• Get the Motives of Your Critics — Be aware of whatever goes on in the criticisms and try to figure out the motive behind the slander, expose the critics if you find them engaging in slander, support with proofs. Play hard to those who want to defame you out of enmity. If you are continuously being subjected to negative comments and similar attacks are made which doesn’t seem professional at all then try to investigate motive of those involved then chase them out.
• Take Necessary Action if Someone Crosses the Limit — You don’t have to fall to false accusations and if any one tries to tarnish your image with false things, solve conflicts at personal level and get to a point of mutual understanding.

  If attacks are made at corporations consult with legal adviser and go for a legal suit against such person, this will make sure no one does such a thing in future.

• Be Clear and Straight Forward — While replying to your criticism its really good practice to be concise, and get on straight with the motive of the critics, don’t be a fool talk straight.
• Always be Calm — Always be calm and approach with a cool head, don’t lose your cool no matter how provocative things are said Professionalism gets you a long way and an unprofessional attitude will get you lose everything.
• Critics Might be Right, You Need to Accept Them — Approach the criticism with a learning attitude, there might be something really important in the comment and if it comes from an industry head special attention must be given to it. That might be fruitful for you.
• Be Ready to Learn and Take Lessons — Why did any client gave a negative comment, you must carefully address the reason for that and then rectify it so that you don’t lose business in future and get 100% satisfied clients.

Conclusion!

While concluding we should summarize the important things as never ignore your critics views, listen to all criticism and accordingly act do learn from the mistakes and acknowledge when you make some mistake and correct it, it only improves you. Don’t fall for negative criticism and avoid addressing much of them and stand strong as don’t let people spread bad word for you as well. At the end criticism is a great way to improve oneself and get better by others verdict.

Let’s see the latest example of the movie Avatar by James Cameron which had all the critics writing it off even before it hit the cinemas. To name a few Digg & Twitter was full of stories about why James Cameron would fail and the movie to be super flop project, all this created more excitement in people and even those who would have never cared to see that movie went to theatres and eventually made it such a great hit that Avatar is the greatest hit of all times now revenues crossing $2 billion. And for this success a major share goes to the criticism it got and the sensation it created.

Further References

• Criticism | From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image Credits

• yes | jan jernmark
• If You’re Not Confused | Brian Talbot
• For the Burma | Roberto Ventre
• Nutcracker | Marc Dezemery