We want to take advantage of our feedback loops to grow and make progress towards our goals. Sometimes we repeat it without thinking deeper into the meaning of those words.
What makes for a good criticism? Obviously we will disregard feedback from people with malicious intent. But what about well-meaning feedback aimed to help us? Well, that’s a good start, but let’s also make sure that the person knows what they are talking about, that they have expertise in the area.
But that’s not enough. Let’s look at an example of a professional photographer. They may get feedback from a fellow photographer, maybe one with more experience, pointing out a technical flaw in a photo, accompanied with solid advice on how to fix it. Should we listen to this advice?
Well, it depends on what your goal is (looping back to the start of this post). We need to make sure that the advice helps us move towards our goal. If the photographer’s top goal was to improve their technique, this advice would be valuable. But what if their goal was to attract more clients? Clients don’t care about the technique being perfect, because, quite frankly, the client would never notice any flaws to begin with. The client cares about getting an image that would convey their message or story in the best way. Spending time polishing the technique wouldn’t move the needle towards this goal.
Instead, the photographer needs to seek advise from photographers who have an abundance of good clients, and ask them how they got there.
The bottom line is, before we decide to take in a piece of advice, we needs to understand where it’s coming from. We need to review the reviewer.