Emotional Intelligence Pocketbook

MANAGING CRITICISM

The trouble with most of us is that we’d rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. – Norman Vincent Peale

When someone criticises you, how do you respond? If you’re like most people, you probably return the attack, or defend yourself or shrink and crumble. There is, though, another option. Accept the criticism, and try to grow from it.

In 2015 Pete Wells, restaurant critic for The New York Times, published a harsh criticism of Thomas Keller’s award winning New York restaurant ‘Per Se’. Wells wrote that the food was ‘respectably dull at best to disappointingly flatfooted at worst’. He described the dishes as ‘random’, ‘purposeless’, ‘rubbery’, and ‘flavourless’. How did Keller respond? In an open letter to restaurant ...