resilence to criticism

One of the biggest mistake of entrepreneurs is having pink glasses when reviewing own business and idea. I'm the best, others are sucks. Or I have a unique proposition, nobody can give this to you. This leads many of businesses to a failure.

Then a person becomes professional, he/she tends to be more resistant to critical views. In my humble opinion, professional is the person who can still open his/her mind to a new information or view rather then pushing own idea. It's ok to have a stron belief into own idea - that's a reason why you have it. In the same time critical review of the idea can improve it a lot.

Many people understand this position in their own manner. Recently I've seen several examples of making a public access to the document asking for idea/presentation/business evaluation. Wow! Those people are open to criticism, I thought. But then I've read all the comments and authors reaction to them. Resistance. Normal reaction is 'Tastes differ' (universal answer to someone's opinion), or 'What can YOU say to me?'. The person posted the document for discussion therefore has a different aim. Instead of asking for an opinion he/she asks for approval, bragging.

I'm not good in listening criticism to my job. I take everything too personal and prefer to blame person who gives criticism of lacking critique skills. Sometimes it is true, but not all the times although I prefer to exaggerate a lot and count all the cases of criticism I don't like to the lack of skills. And I'm also awful in giving criticism meaning that I try to find weaknesses without mentioning strenghs. When I don't like one job from the person I tend to perceive other his/her jobs in a worse way.

So, here are some rules and exersises I use to be less critique resilent and give a good criticism.

While asking for a critique:
1. Try to evaluate your job without bias. Think about target audience - what are their interests and do they find benefits in your message. Do they have an answer on the question 'What's in it for me?' Make a list of their interests and answer if your documents brings your idea to fit them.
2. Count to 10 after making suggestion about criticism given. Think about the person's interest of giving this critique to you. Is there good sense in his/her comment? What will change if you make suggested chnges? Are they for good or for bad.
3. Remember, those comments are about your document/idea, not about yourself. They doesn't reflect your skills/talent in full, just a small piece incarnated into this document/idea.

While giving the criticism.
1. Evaluate the job, not the person who made it.
2. Make a list of strenghts and weaknesses. Try to provide an even quantity of comments on each part. If you can't provide one of the parts, think deeper.
3. Think out the words you're making criticism. While making criticism, ask yourself about your interests. And interests of a person asking for criticism.
4. Never give criticism when not asked. In ideal world give criticism only if they have paid for it)))