ENGI

nostrich:

Robby Grossman:

The reason I was so offended at first is that I thought that taking criticism was the standard of a student in a student-teacher relationship. To me it was like force-praising a bad teacher by saying “you do a great job showing up to class everyday.” That’s what you’d say to a teacher who had no teaching skills. But I quickly learned that my analogy was flawed. Taking criticism was a skill in itself. There were students who did not take feedback well. To this day I feel very sorry for them, because they lost out on 75 days worth of fantastic wilderness lessons.

And here’s why: nobody was willing to criticize these people after the first week because everybody knew it would lead to conflict. And so by the mountaineering section, when I was getting advanced critiques on navigating through a whiteout (very, very difficult), the more defensive folks were just trotting along, with the same navigation skillsets they had when they started.

Eventually I returned to civilization, and a while later I got my first job. I learned that people function exactly the same way in the office. I’ve seen people at work who take criticism well and respond with a thank you. They continue to get constructive feedback because people feel safe giving it to them. I’ve also seen people who explode in the way that I miraculously avoided despite being young and stupid. I feel sad when I see people do this, because I know that when everybody else is learning the advanced techniques for navigating their corporate worlds (very, very difficult), these people will be trotting along, the same as they were when they started.

(Source: nostrich)