Alban, Personally, I prefer to work with people with whom I can discuss things directly and without beating around the bush. I was blessed to have a boss (who was also my mentor) like that for several years. It is especially important in my work - scientific research, where you can "attack" (as in _challenge_) ideas without any personal reflection. With that person we had episodes when we were yelling at each other about the results we were discussing, but that had no bearing on our relations. At the same time I observed that many people are not ready to hear honest critique directly. For that reason, some people thought of my former boss as being too harsh and/or extravagant.
The idea of starting critique with the pointing out the positive parts is well known. I've heard this in the management and teaching recommendations. In the class on communication in science that I teach, I've been trying to suggest this to the students, and to implement that myself. Yes, it does work for many people, but yes, it is hard to do it that way. Igor Wed Jul 4 11:33:03 EDT 2012 alban bernard wrote: Trying to mitigate harshness by maintaining a constant 2:1 ratio between positive and negative feedback introduces a bias. Readers will accommodate to this bias overtime and after a certain period, they will know what a ratio of 2:1 really means. Maybe, the time someone took to write a comment is already a positive thing in itself. To me, it is better to rely on politeness and tact. Then, it is possible to say only negative things without hurting. Another interesting article to find somewhere is how to take and read critics from others in a positive way. In a critic exchange, there are two parties, the critic and the criticized one. Both have to make some effort to manage the negative effects of criticism. --- On Wed, 7/4/12, Derby Chang <derbyc at iinet.net.au> wrote: > From: Derby Chang <derbyc at iinet.net.au> > Subject: Constructive Critique > To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <pdml at pdml.net> > Date: Wednesday, July 4, 2012, 12:36 PM > > Not a bad post from Eric > > http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/07/how-to-give-a-constructive-critique-in-street-photography/ > > -- > derbyc at iinet.net.au > http://members.iinet.net.au/~derbyc -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
