Critique Is A Superpower

Any student who went through art school learned formal critique. Some loved it, some are scarred for life. But it's an incredibly useful skill that everyone should learn. Because everybody will need to both give and receive feedback at some point in their life. Think about the last time you had to critique your own work output, or someone else's, or another person, or a process. How do you tell your hairstylist it's not quite what you wanted? And how do you do it in a way that is constructive?

The word critique often has negative connotations, but critique is the process. You can feel positive or negative or neutral about whatever you are critiquing. Critique is not deciding that you like or dislike something. That's opinion, and everyone knows the old saying, "opinions are like assholes, everybody has one." Critique is asking yourself hard questions about why you like or dislike something. I'm sure you've encountered someone who said, "I don't know, I just don't like it." This would not fly in critique. You must explain. And in the learning how to explain, two things happen 1) you learn how to better express yourself and therefore 2) you become a better communicator.

I've noticed that while creative teams are expected to receive feedback from everyone and their cousin (literally, sometimes), it gets awkward when they attempt to give feedback to another department. Folks just don't know what to do with that.

Designers are trained to show work early, receive hard feedback, and separate their identity from their output. It’s uncomfortable at first and then it becomes the thing that makes the work better.

Product teams, Peter observed, tend to work differently. Thinking happens behind closed doors. The deliverable (a roadmap, a set of priorities) arrives largely formed. By the time anyone else sees it, significant investment has already been made in the direction it points.

Getting product people into design critiques occasionally, or building shared rituals that model what early-stage feedback looks like, can shift that. Not by making product people feel exposed, but by making the process feel normal. – d.MBA

For most designers, critique is just normal. And it's not that people who learned critique are immune from having feelings about feedback, it's just that the other thing you learn over time is to separate what is useful from what is not useful so you can take action on the right things. And so you're not getting your feelings hurt when they need not be. Because in the real world people are critiquing other people all the time. So, what if they were just better at it?

How do you know if you're giving constructive feedback?

1. The other person knows what action to take based on clear communication.
2. It should lead to some improvement.
3. Nobody's feelings are hurt.

If things did not go well:

1. Double check your motivation.
2. Did you explain clearly why?
3. Did you make it personal?
4. Was it necessary? Did you give feedback when it wasn't solicited or part of your job?

One of these days I'm going to teach a class on this, but if you want to get into more of the how, check this out:

The One Rule

Examining art to learn how to give better feedback.

Vis CommunicationK. Nicole Stowe

Critique is a superpower because it unlocks a way to not just better understand the world, but to better communicate about it. And when you receive some critique from others, you can figure out whether or not it's worth listening to.