How to gracefully accept criticism?

Had a meeting with my manager this week. He's very direct in telling me what I did well/need improvement on.

When he lists out all the things that are "negative", my heart starts beating exponentially faster and I have that strong urge to argue/fight back. Surely I'm not the only one who feels this way - who wants criticisms? I really do envy those of you who have thicker skin and can take criticism well. Any advice for me?

 

If you're under the age of 25, it's not real surprising. You just have to not be a narcissistic douche and realize the guy sitting across from you likely a) knows more than you and b) is trying to help you.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

You'll learn, sooner rather than later (hopefully), that other people's opinions are often just as valid as yours. That realization changed my life. It happened to me during a similar situation as what you described. Story incoming:

It was summer review time during an internship I did a while back. I had worked on some huge company excel file for a solid 2 weeks, rounding up and inputting information, adding macro functionality, and generally really boring stuff. However, I was slacking, and I knew this - more could have been done and I spent half the day doing more interesting work with an analyst.

My boss, who had just come from a 3-week trip to India, ripped me a new asshole during my review. I said a few things back, and got really heated in the middle of it. It got to the point where me and him were literally arguing in the conference room over this shit, loudly and snapping back and forth.

It was so bad afterwards, that he deliberately left the conference room door open on the next review so that I could hear him continue to cleverly ream me out in front of the other analyst, knowing that my cubicle was near the conference room and that I could hear it all clearly. The next analyst's review consisted almost entirely of statements like, "blah blah, but we're backed up because the intern did nothing for 3 weeks," and "you did well on this, good thing the intern at least did that correctly."

The following Monday morning, I was still fuming over what had happened. I decided to go in, collect my things, and quit. However, for some reason the metro stopped working 3 stops from my job. I was in Shanghai, and 3 stops on the train can leave you a long way from where you're going. However, being an NYC guy, I said "fuck it" and decided to walk. It took me 3 hours in the blistering China sun to get to work. I got in at 11AM. But, somewhere along the way, it all dawned on me: my ass should simply have been fired.

From there, it didn't take a lot of reflecting for me to realize that "I was fucking wrong," and that "I'm actually pretty fucking wrong pretty fucking often."

My boss was out of the office on business that week. The analyst who I helped with work (and who my boss verbally flogged me in front of) told me to stay, that she put in a good word for me over the weekend and that she'd give me work from then on. I proceeded to tighten the slack all summer, and left on a positive note with my boss and everyone there.

TL;DR: tighten your shit up. Nobody complains about good work being done.

in it 2 win it
 
Best Response

Okay, yea that's not unusual. Lots of people in your age range (and well outside of it, honestly) haven't learned how to take criticism. You probably don't realize it, but it's because you either a) know your performance is shitty or b) think the world revolves around you. You can deny it, but I'm probably right.

If you can talk about yourself and take your ego out of the equation you'll be golden. You have to go in thinking, "I want to learn the most about what I've done, right or wrong, and how I can be better." If you actually listen to what he's saying and deeply analyze it, you'll forget that he's telling you where to sack up.

If you're sure you did something right and he says you did it wrong, don't argue. Ask questions. You shouldn't be arguing with your boss, especially during an internship. If you ask questions instead of argue/fight back, you'll sound engaged and interested (makes you look good) and you'll learn something (help you look good in the future).

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 
Kassad:
From there, it didn't take a lot of reflecting for me to realize that "I was fucking wrong," and that "I'm actually pretty fucking wrong pretty fucking often."

Oh man, what I wouldn't give to have realized that even a year or two earlier

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

You're only a SA? Learn to take criticism well- it comes with the territory. Use it as motivation or just use it as something you can really learn from. I remember being an SA too... nearly everything I did at work I thought was flawless and couldn't see anything wrong with what I did... until someone else looked at it. Yes, getting harsh criticism sucks, but if you can't rebound from it and use it to plan and show improvement by the time your next review comes around, your boss should find somebody else to take your spot.

 

That they bothered to criticize an SA instead of just disposing of you means they see at least some potential. No one likes getting their ass chewed out, but hey, it has to be done for the good of all involved. Get it together, and someday YOU will be the guy verbally crapping on someone....that's how this game is played :)

Get busy living
 

The senior vp where I interned this summer(small firm) was gracious enough to sit down and go over my resume with me as well as help me with connections for the future. The first thing he told me was "this resume sucks". But I listened, took his advice/criticism and walked away with a much better resume and was able to expand my network and get some interviews with top guys at more prestigious firms.

tl;dr: listen and learn. It will most likely be to your benefit

 

I used to be the worst at this, and i still have a long way to go. I actually learned that before we hit our mid-twenties, the frontal lobes of our brains aren't fully developed - and this is the part of our brain responsible for overriding emotion with reason. This means that we need to be that much MORE committed to calming the defensive/aggressive/fight-or-flight response. I think one thing we can do to get better at this is practice saying 'Huh' (as in 'huh, i never thought of it that way') in conversation. I think the calm recognition of others opinions that run contrary to ours is habit-forming and is a skill we can carry over to our reviews

Past that, I have a question of my own (very similar to OP's). In the review itself, what's the best way to respond? I mean I know during the review we have to keep calm and after the review we have to correct the mistake, and maybe these are the two most important things. But we can we say during the review that would make a favorable impression on our managers? Looking for some feedback on what the best response to feedback is! ;)

 

If you can dialogue with your managers about it that will help. Particularly, if you've already been working to improve on something he's mentioned, make sure you let him know how. Ask for advice or if he'll expand on certain things.

Just make it a conversation instead of looking at it like, "oh shit, I fucked up."

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

Sit on a beach and drink strawberry daquiris in Belize

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

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