“Everyone’s
a critic” is a problem designers know all too well. When you show a design solution to a group
of businessmen, computer programmers, accountants, and managers they love to
pick it apart and can be highly creative in imagining scenarios in which your
design will fail, spinning up hours or days of work in which you have to do
some deeply ridiculous things to accommodate their criticism.
While we
have little love for critics, it’s unavoidable that people with little
understanding of design are going to criticize your designs – and as much as you
might relish the thought of bringing a case of pacifiers and a tube of
super-glue to design reviews, that’s a choice that the HR department will
likely rule out.
It is
also not very productive to turn the situation into a battle of wills, which is
a contest to see which person can be the most infantile. Designers in general suffer from the
stereotype of throwing tantrums when someone criticizes their work, and while
that can be purgative and entertaining, it’s not a solution to the problem.
Neither
is it particularly productive merely to silence our critics. Everyone who’s invited to a design review
has something to offer, and knowledge that must be leveraged in creating an
effective solution – which is the reason they were invited (or saw fit to
invite themselves) in the first place.
So instead, we must find a way to channel their negative energy into
something more positive.
Criticism is not Collaboration
The first thing to do is
to inform the culture of what it means to genuinely collaborate – because some
critics think that their nit-picking is in some way helpful to the goals of the
group, the project, and the organization.
But there is a significant difference between criticizing and collaborating. Consider these key three points:
CRITICISM
|
COLLABORATION
|
Gives Problems to Others
|
Gives Solutions to Others
|
Makes Conversations Longer
|
Makes Conversation Shorter
|
Takes Us Further from the Goal
|
Gets Us Closer to the Goal
|
Both criticism and
collaboration are part of the problem-solving process – you must find a problem
before you can solve it, but the work does not end there. If you’re going to make a contribution to an
effort, rather than just creating more effort, you have to provide solutions to
the problems that you identify.
Collaboration Requires Labor
It’s no accident that the
word “labor” appears right in the middle of “collaboration” because it takes
effort to be collaborative, and the “co” prefix indicates that it’s work that
two or more people do together. It’s
certainly not a process by which one person gives work to others and then walks
away from the problem they just created.
I believe the word for that is “executive management.”
The problem is that people
are basically lazy and want to do half the job – or far less than half, because
it takes two minutes to point out a problem that will take someone else two
hours (or days, or months) for someone else to solve. But that’s not collaboration – it’s criticism
– and rather than silencing your critics, you must get them to be
collaborative.
Turning Critics into Collaborators
How do you turn a person
who wants to criticize others’ work into a collaborator who does something
positive to achieve the goal? Two words: be stubborn. Do not be stubborn in ignoring criticism, but
be stubborn in demanding collaboration, and do not let them off the hook until
you have their commitment to give it.
One technique is to
respond to a criticism by asking “so what do you suggest?” Very often a person who points to a problem
already has a solution in mind that they are reluctant to suggest. That itself can be trouble because the
solution they have in mind is often very, very bad from a design perspective.
But instead of dismissing
their ideas, help them to improve them by asking two more questions. “How does that solve the problem you just
suggested?” and “How do you know it will be effective?” That last question is a easy for someone who
understands design, because they can cite theory or evidence of design choices
that are effective.
You can use these exact
phrases to encourage critics to collaborate – What do you suggest? How does that solve the problem? How do you know it will be effective? – or
develop your own, improvising to suit the situation so that you don’t sound
like a broken record every time criticism rear its ugly head. The point is to get critics off of merely
criticizing and contribute something that will move the team forward rather
than holding everyone back.
Terminating the Terminal Critics
Again, it’s generally the
case that a critic means to be helpful, but there are “those people” who can’t
help themselves and who cannot be helped to overcome their negative behaviors. The “terminal critic” is a lot less common
than you might think – and if you try the technique of stubbornly demanding
their assistance, they will often recognize their own bad behavior, correct it,
and adjust their approach to you in future.
People generally mean well, and you should always assume positive
intentions, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
However, there are those
special few who insist on criticizing and will refuse to collaborate – and
there are toxic workplaces in which a complainer who dumps problems on others
is seen as having “management potential.”
You can work to change the culture, or you can get out of it. But when you are in an organization where
the culture is positive and there are a few negative individuals who don’t fit
in, and stubbornly refuse your efforts to get them to collaborate, then
sometimes the answer is to terminate them.
The technique described is
not intended to dumbfound or embarrass critics into withdrawing their
criticism, but to contribute the thought and labor required to be collaborative
– if their criticism is valid. But if
they are dumbfounded, it’s a strong sign that the criticism is not at all
valid, and they will often withdraw it, and then refrain from making unfounded
critical remarks in future.
That’s not at all a bad
thing, because you’re not discouraging them from collaboration, just from
criticism. And it sends the strong
message to be collaborate, or be silent – and in the long run, to be
collaborative, or to be gone. That
sounds a bit Machiavellian, and it probably is – but if you repeatedly try to
bring out the best in people and you find “the best” just isn’t there, then you
don’t need them and neither does your project team. They will get the message that they are not
being productive or helpful, and so will everyone else in the room … and in the
end, square pegs have the tendency to pop out of round holes all on their
own. Enough said?
Building a Collaborative Culture
To end on a positive note,
you should work to create a collaborative culture in your team and your
workplace, and unless you’re in a management position you are going to have to
do it slowly, one critic at a time and one criticism at a time. You will see results, but just as slowly, as
your team becomes more productive, working relationships become better, and an
atmosphere of criticism turns into one of true collaboration.
This is a critical step in
advancing in your own career: moving from your role as a design practitioner to
the role of a design coach and even a design leader requires improving not only
your individual performance, but also that of your team and company. And when the powers that be recognize that
you’re the kind of person who can do this, your chances of being elevated to a
management position in which you can spread positive influence more broadly and
more quickly will significantly improve, at least in an organization that
values and rewards collaboration.
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