Being direct is important because when we communicate or speak indirectly, the point we want to make is missed by the recipient. People tend to hear what they want to hear, not what is being said, and mix that with the fact that human beings tend to magnify criticism they hear… bam! An explosive mix. Too often, criticism can have the opposite of the intended effect, rather than leading to improvement, it could damage the relationship.
But sometimes you need to criticize people you work with. How do you best go about doing so?
Here is one of my favorite techniques, and it is related to some of the other suggestions discussed in this series.
Imagine if before you criticize someone, you first articulate the entire situation from their eyes in a way that makes them look great and smart? And only after having done that, you give them your criticism?
This methodology does a few powerful things.
First, it shows the other person that you seriously understand their side.
Second, it shows them you’re not an asshole. Assholes just start drilling away at them, not caring about their perspective. And you’ve done this before drilling away, so while you drill away, they will know you get their side.
Third, it preempts their more natural response. The response to any criticism is usually the defensive justifications, “No, I had to do it that way because of A, B, and C” but when you’ve already explained that you understand that to them, they can’t get too defensive.
Let me give you an example.
Another freelancer you’re working with just isn’t delivering. You keep on asking him for things and they just never seem to come. How do you let him know he’s vastly underperforming?”
Here’s a way that may work with some people, but is also high-risk that it may ignite a war: “Hey, very consistently, you’re not delivering what you promise me you will. You keep on saying you’ll do things and it never happens. Why is that? How can we fix it?”
That’s the blunt and brutal approach. Some people (including yours truly) happen to enjoy that directness. But I’ve found that it can often backfire and cause a war. Especially with the weak-willed.
My strategy is to just say that directly, you need to be clear, strong, and direct to make sure the message gets through. Euphemisms lose the strength. But I always preface by saying that with what I think is happening in their mind, in a way that makes them look great. For example:
“I know that over the last 3 months, you’ve been really busy. You have two new huge clients, and your baby was just born. I also know from experience new clients take up lots of time, and especially such big clients with such big projects as theirs. And our project is smaller so you’re not prioritizing it. And that makes sense; in fact, if I were in your shoes, I think I would be de-prioritizing our project for these exact same reasons. However, as a result of that…” and then I’d launch into the same criticism as above, although without the “Why is that?” (since I had just speculated to him the reason why.)
This approach lets us keep the direct bluntness, but also frames everything in a much more positive way, which will hopefully be more likely to achieve the intended outcome: better performance, and better communication, on all sides.
