Love your Critics!

In the world of Reviews, Opinions and Critiques, I always found critique is more of beneficiary tool for human being for their advancement on this planet than discouragement. Yes, I am saying so because it’s like of how you perceive and adapt it. I love being with critics and always enjoy keeping them around me as they are the best teachers and motivators for me in my life. I always found that most of the times, they helped me to get the better of me.

                        

Reasons are obvious:

-- Because by criticizing they actually tell you indirectly that yes you have capability of doing that which according to their understanding you just cannot.

-- They always try to make you feel you are at your place because of fluke and now would not stay there any longer…This is the time when I realize okay if you say so..maybe now I need to go one place up above than where I am. Sometimes, this really brings a bit mischievous smile within me and asked me to gear up for another quest.

I do not have great deal of experience but this what I tried most of the times it worked almost all the time for me. It’s not scientific formula to be honest which I follow always but I do believe in it strongly. Hopefully this will help you all in those bad times.

 Don’t react to them immediately but do show up your face right up on their noses. Let your critics know the leader you are. Adopting a “hide in bunker” attitude will only encourage to them. It gives them freedom to unleash their paintbrushes on you however they like — demon, useless, undeserved, or do-nothing attitude person. By showing up you demonstrate that you are not afraid and ready for another quest more positively.

 Take it as you love it. Be open to them and always say that you agree to their disagreements. This help to confuse them and make them realize what is their AIM on saying that. Do they want make you fall from your place or just want to make you uncomfortable or pose you as another BAD fellow.

 Stay calm and Be cool. When people criticize you to your face, breathe deeply. As an opponent's voice rises, lower yours. Speak deliberately and with a sense of calm. The more control you have of your emotions, the stronger you will appear. No one disagree the fact that “The more calm you, the better for you and your brain to speak smartly and strategically”.

 Smile all the time. This demonstrates that you are in control. Smile when appropriate, but never smirk. Don't let them see you sweat, either. Smiling keeps you on a more even keel. Sometimes, this makes them vulnerable to making mistakes by going beyond their limit. Apparently this posture them as Villain in neutral audience.

 Acknowledge your Bad Situation and Timing. Standing up to criticism is an opportunity to admit your own failings. Do this with a sense of sincerity, as you are showing them your positive emotions and passion. Make Neutral Audience realize that you have done what you think is best with the best of your intensions. At the same time, do not be defensive. Act with honest confidence, even when you admit mistakes. Sometimes showing losing some rope on Tug of war might help you to win them all convincingly.

 Never be Aggressive and Criticize gently. The spotlight may be on you, but the heat is also on your critics. When get chance to give it back, do it with a sense of diplomacy. Don’t take on individuals rather show that you are taking this up on you and all. This helps you to reduce their unnecessary importance and kills them inside with the fact that they are nothing for you and you just ignore them as senseless person. While getting in all this, Always make sure that you are not even nearby of taking any revenge feeling which help you focus on yourself for getting better for future than thinking of deteriorating your critiques to dust. It’s also good idea to have a good-natured jibe here or there for you as well as others. It reveals your humanity.

 Leave them wanting more. You must know when to pull shutter on the engagement even though its look like you are winning the debate. You can ruin your well earned good fortune thing by hanging around on stage to finish them all. It’s always great idea to get off stage and let others react on your position which sometimes helps to clear your bad impression and also shows that you are not there win over the world and adds extra sincerity points. This is really very important and I have learned this lesson by hard way in my work environment.



Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)



To be honest, I realized this by observing most of people in my lives, but sorry would not be able to mention any of those names here but at the same time, I will also like to give few names who I follow for similar things likes of Barack Obama, MS Dhoni, AB Vajpayee.



End of all, I would like to underline the fact that one of very famous American lecturer/writer has said it before “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving..” So, I would say if you have critiques then don’t be afraid of them, on top of it love them and keep them with you always because in today’s world they are the ones who drive you from potential to your growth and bring that feeling of satisfaction & adds extra value to your achievements.

Success: Time and Chance along with Good Instincts

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet to bread to wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

                                                ~ Ecclesiastes 9:11

Harold MacMillan

After completing my MBA, I am thinking of this quote for success because be it in Business or elsewhere, is not always the result of brilliant strategy, dazzling tactics, extensive knowledge or general all encompassing ‘talent’ alone. Occasionally it may be but most often it just not. On the other hand it is very seldom for an individual idea or business idea to succeed solely on the back of pure chance either. Business is often unpredictable thing as sometimes most logical and rigorously researched strategies can fall foul of the unexpected and the coincidental. I remember somewhere I read about Britain’s former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once famously said when asked about the factors which influence successful or unsuccessful political careers; “events, dear boy, events.”

Time, chance and business intelligence have certainly influenced many situations. It is interesting to see what roles do intelligence and chance play in Business venture. Consider the following situation: Imagine you are CEO of company that manufactures consumer electric goods and you personally have sanctioned one of the costliest budgets of development of new revolutionary device. You ask one of your best marketing team to investigate the potential uptake of the prototype (through focus groups, random samplings) and the outcome news is no GOOD. Their consider opinion is that the device will not even sell in sufficient numbers by which they can cover the cost of manufacturing & development, partly because device itself was too revolutionary for the current market and partly because you personally (in their view) have fixed the selling price too low. Even the design team set up to develop the product is openly sceptical of its commercial possibilities. On top of all this your wife/huband/partner does not like the gadget one bit and, to add insult to injury, the marketers have sanctioned a name for it that is, in your considered opinion, truly awful (they did this while you were abroad on business and the cost of reversing their decision would now be prohibitive.

So, faced with the above situation, what would you do?

What actual CEO did was to personally authorise a manufacturing run at considerable cost, stick with the relatively low selling price, stick with the name he hated because it was too costly to change it by then, and to go boldly forth! Why? Partly because he and a sixteen year old relative of his loved the gadget to bits and they believed sceptics had it wrong.

Who was the CEO?

Akio Morita (1921-99)

Akio Morita of the Sony Corporation.

And the Gadget?

The Sony Walkman (Morita detested the name ‘Walkman’ he wanted to call it ‘Walking Stereo’- so a bit of good fortune he was away then!)

As we now know, the Sony Walkman went on to become truly global phenomenon that made the company hundreds of millions of dollars. The question worth reflecting upon of course is this – was Morita’s Decision to proceed (completely justified as it turned out) just a lucky throw, or did it have something to do with Business intelligence?

I believe (in this particular instance at least) that it was primarily the latter. Sometimes the number-crunchers and research-nerds get it wrong and battle hardened managers and sixteen year old kid (who was the walkman aimed at after all) get it right.

The principal objection of the walkman nay-Sayers was that people would not be prepared to pay for tape player that did not also record music. But Morita believed that his target audience’s desire to take their music with them wherever they went would outweigh this deficit. He was right. Morita had gut feeling about the walkman, a feeling predicted on years of experience in consumer electronics. His gut feeling told him it was right time for the walkman and he consequently took the chance. So Remember, Always Time and Chance with gut feeling pay of idea perfectly..!! J