Book Titles

When you criticize someone without taking even two seconds to show you care, your guidance feels obnoxiously aggressive to the recipient.

Fortunately, the ‘asshole or incompetent’ thing is a false dichotomy: you don’t have to choose between those two extremes.

It happens all too often that bosses view employees as lesser beings who can be degraded without conscience; that employees view their bosses as tyrants to be toppled; and that peers view one another as enemy combatants.

When this is the toxic culture of guidance, criticism is a weapon rather than a tool for improvement; it makes the giver feel powerful and the receiver feel awful.

Blaming people’s internal essence rather than their external behavior leaves no room for change.

When you are overly worried about how people will perceive you, you’re less willing to say what needs to be said.

Unfortunately, conventional wisdom and a lot of management advice pushes bosses to challenge less, rather than encouraging them to care more.

If a person is bold enough to criticize you, do not critique their criticism.

…the best praise does a lot more than just make people feel good. It can actually challenge them directly.

…ask for criticism before giving it, and offer more praise than criticism. Be humble, helpful, offer guidance in person and immediately, praise in public, criticize in private, and don’t personalize.