As humans, we generally don't take criticism well. This really greets us in nearly every sphere of our life, but perhaps most painfully in marriage.
As a professional, I have both publicly and privately embraced the value of criticism. I cherish the rare bits of negative criticism I've received over the years, and actively evangelize the value of criticism to fellow business owners.
Despite that professional posture, I too struggle with criticism, specifically, as mentioned above, within marriage. Cara and I have been participating in a marriage class for the last couple months. It’s been a great experience, significantly heightening my awareness of how I communicate my wife, and by extension, others I interact with.
One of the things we’ve been encouraged to work on during this class, is truly committing to understanding our partner’s deepest needs. This involves genuinely seeking to understand our spouses feelings. Here comes the challenging part for me: when Cara reveals her feelings to me about something, my gut reaction at times is to take a defensive posture, or to explain to her why her feelings aren’t valid.
Case and point-
Last week Cara texted me earlier in the day asking when I’d be home from the office/work/meetings/networking. I told her my last meeting was done at 6, (at least that’s how I remember saying it). What she heard, (and what I probably did say) was that I’d be home at 6. Well, 6:25 rolled around and I finally traipsed through the door. You can see where this is going.
*Update
I shared the post with Cara, and afterward felt like it was only fair for me to share a bit more. First of all, this whole episode (along with the hurt feelings) started with a phone conversation as I was driving home from my meeting. That phone conversation ended with me hanging up on my wife. Ugh. Not proud of that. A moment of frustration- frustrated at myself that I was yet again late, but ultimately putting it on Cara. Oh, and for a bit more perspective, this particular week, I'd been out after 6 nearly every night of the week. (I don't at all want to present my wife as being petty or a nag. Quite the contrary)
Fast forward later into the evening. “Babe, I feel like you’re upset with me for some reason. Are you upset because I was late?” (knowing full well that was likely the cause of her funk) She replied, “ Ya, actually it really hurt my feelings that you showed up late. You said you’d be home, so I had dinner already to go and it’s been a long day with the kids.”
I then went on to explain why occasionally I don’t have control over when I get out of meetings/events. “I don’t have a 9-5 job, where once I leave the office, I just hang up the hat and I’m done.” and “I never know when I’ll run into an existing client, or take a call from someone who needs to get a policy going,” or “Look, it’s just 15 minutes. When was the last time you miscalculated and came home from work 30 minutes late? Did I give you a hard time about it?”
Man, it’s hard to bare this out for all to see. but truth is, this is my world.
My response ultimately shut the conversation down. Where can Cara go from there? I’ve just invalidated her feelings. She was trying to help me understand better how I make her feel, and I’ve essentially told her to buck up and get over it. Ugh.
Obviously, this gut reaction to defend and invalidate is not just limited to our marriages.
Have you ever taken a similar posture with a client that is trying to provide feedback? Has a business owner ever given you that kind of response? Is there ever a good time to “defend”, invalidate or marginalize the feedback someone is giving?
Share your experience, start a conversation. This is good for us to mull over. I'm curious if this example even resonates with folks. I tend to find a lot of lessons from marriage that have application in my business. If it strikes a chord, I'll continue to share these examples as they come up. -chris
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