The Essentials: Handling Fierce Criticism
35:27 Share

<context>处理激烈批评的要点 如果你处于领导角色，或者在任何一个你以直言不讳和显而易见的方式展示自己和自己想法的角色中，那么在某个时刻，人们很可能会批评你，有时是激烈的，有时是公开的。你准备好面对这些了吗？ 两位女性因为她们所做的决定或提出的论点——或者仅仅因为她们的身份——而感受到压力，反思了她们如何为严厉的批评做好准备并应对后果。帕蒂·纽霍尔德-拉维库马描述了作为大学校长在沟通有争议的预算削减时所召集的准备和冷静。鲁奇卡·图尔希扬利用她在多样性、公平和包容性（DEI）及女性领导力方面的专业知识来为这些经历提供背景，并描述了她自己在网上遭受骚扰的经历以及她是如何应对怀疑者的。 倾听她们讲述如何应对激烈批评的经历，希望能帮助你思考自己在面对批评时的反应，无论是当你预见到它时，还是当你没有预见到时。 嘉宾专家： 鲁奇卡·图尔希扬是《有目的的包容：创造工作场所归属文化的交叉性方法》一书的作者。她是Candour的创始人，这是一家专注于包容性战略的公司。 帕蒂·纽霍尔德-拉维库马是一位执行教练，曾担任中央俄克拉荷马大学的校长和首席执行官。 资源：

“如何在严厉批评面前保持韧性”，作者：约瑟夫·格伦尼 “如何妥善接受批评”，作者：萨比娜·纳瓦兹 “在危机中，伟大的领导者优先倾听”，作者：埃里卡·詹姆斯和林恩·佩里·伍滕

给我们发邮件：[email protected] </context> <raw_text>0 Asana is where work connects, where projects, teams, and company goals are seamlessly intertwined with AI to propel your organization towards shared success. Try for free today at asana.com. If you're in charge of an organization or in any role where you're visible and outspoken, if you host a podcast, chances are that at some point people will criticize you, sometimes fiercely, sometimes publicly.

Are you ready for that? Ruchika Toshian wasn't, at least not at the beginning of her career as a finance journalist and advocate for diversity in business. She'd written an article about a new immigration category for the spouses of work visa holders. And in the comments section, a reader calls her, let's just say the C word.

And I was absolutely shocked. I mean, none of my training as a journalist had, you know, prepared me for it. There weren't conversations really being had. And the little bit that I was kind of hearing, a lot of it was from male journalists who were like, oh, let it just roll off your shoulders. It's no big deal.

And this nameless, faceless troll had really just attacked me ad hominem for who I was. It was really painful. And it's been well over a decade since that happened. I wish I could say that was the last time. But as a woman on the Internet, as a woman of color on the Internet, it still regularly happens again.

often in actually now more subtle ways. Today, Ruchika runs a consultancy through which she advises executives on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She also gives talks and writes books about DEI and posts about it on LinkedIn. In putting herself out there, she's faced a lot of pushback that ranges from skepticism to downright harassment. And she's had to find ways to cope, and she'll share those with us.

You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. In this series, The Essentials, Amy G and I cover key career skills by bringing together experts on those skills and audience members who are looking to get better at them.

The thing we like about grounding these episodes in the specifics of individual women's experience is how it makes management principles less theoretical and practical advice more realistic.

My two guests today, Ruchika and Patti Newhold-Ravi Kumar, are experts on communicating strategically about contentious issues. They develop that expertise in part from their own encounters with fierce criticism. And when we're put on the spot in those moments, we have to create that pause in order to let our minds catch up and our emotions tune down.

Patty's also an executive coach. Before getting into consulting recently, she spent a long stretch of her career rising up through the University of Central Oklahoma, the last three of her 15 years there as its president until 2023. As a university president, you're in the spotlight. Everything you say can and will be used in some form or fashion.

to either represent what you believe or feel or what you believe or feel in relationship to the university. And so you have to be very thoughtful about the representation that you're putting forward for the number of people that are leaning on you for leadership. On occasion, the everyday attention and scrutiny intensified, even startled her. But like Ruchika, she found ways to cope.

Listening to them recount how they responded to fierce criticism will, I hope, help you think about how you might respond, both when you see it coming and when you don't. First of all, thank you both for being here today. This is a tough topic to discuss, and I can tell you where it came from. About three years ago, when the Women at Work podcast was still very new,

I was checking our reviews. I think we've been talking about them and how, you know, people really seem to like our podcast. And so I thought, you know what? I could use a little, a little shot of good feeling. I'm going to go check out our reviews on Apple podcasts. Yeah. What a mistake because I read the first one. It was great. Second one kept scrolling down. And then I get to a review titled, uh,

titled, not even buried in the review, titled, I Don't Like Amy B. And that was just, it was like a slap across the face. I am a little embarrassed how much it hurt. So that is where this idea came from. It's how do you deal with that kind of criticism that rocks you to your core and

that you can't even really answer most of the time. So there it is. There's the origin story, the most trivial, thinnest skin story of all. But I actually think that every time I've ever been told that I'm not likable, like very directly, is actually probably the most painful. Like those moments feel really like they get under your skin. And Amy B., I like you.

Oh, heart, Patti. Heart, Patti. Heart right back at you. I want to throw this open to your stories. Patti, I wonder if you'd like to start. Well, absolutely. Thank you for having me here today. And when I think about criticism in my experience...

What I had to do for myself is remember, are they criticizing me as a person or are they criticizing a decision I've made? Are they criticizing an outcome that they're experiencing?

our university had a significant budget deficit, which is not unique in public higher education today, nor is it really unique in public higher education in general. But it had reached a fever pitch for the institution that I was leading. And having been a CFO there leading up to that moment of leadership as president, I

I knew firsthand what was going on. I knew what had been done and hadn't been done. I knew what we had tried. I knew how we had communicated that. And in the end, it was my responsibility in this new role to address it. And we had run out of all of those tricks in our bag to do everything we could to push it off as long as we could. And it was time to deal with it. Mm-hmm.

And so the decisions that I had to make with the support of a great team and input from the rest of campus was...

We had to address this. We had to fill this gap. We had to stop spending more than we were bringing in. And it meant that we were going to have to cut faculty positions, which is something that we had really worked to not impact for years and years. We had let go of dozens and dozens of staff positions. And we were to a place where we needed to let go of some other positions that had more direct impact on our students.

And of course, that didn't sit well with the faculty, rightfully so. And our students were also not happy about that. So student protests, you know, greeted in my office by 100 students who were not happy, who were armed with general information, but not necessarily fully accurate information, and

and trying to explain and calm and quell at the same time holding your footing and knowing we have to do this. This is the tough stuff that we're all here to do. And so that was the first time that came to mind for me when you said, when was the time that you had, you know, felt the heat? That surely was a time I felt the heat. I was on the news. I was in the newspapers. I

I had presidents from across the country calling me because they saw it on their news. So there were things that didn't feel good in those moments. But when I stepped back and I rewatched the video, you know, I went back to the scene of the moment and I read the articles in the paper again. I listened to the student voices and I thought, you know what? They're not criticizing me personally in most of this. It was really the outcome that they were criticizing.

And that helped me frame the moment for myself. That shows tremendous poise to be able to say this isn't about me. This is about a tough decision I had to make that's going to have a really tough impact on them. But Chika, I wonder if you have any questions for Patty about what she just described.

Yeah, I mean, in a lot of the work I do advising leaders, and especially when I'm working with women leaders, especially when I'm working with leaders of color who have to make announcements like this, it can be really, really fraught. So

Because this is the Women at Work podcast, I'm wondering if you ever felt like being a woman impacted the level of criticism you got. And just thinking of my own experience, was there criticism that was targeted at the fact that you're a woman and perhaps your decision making wasn't entirely sound?

I have to say, I never was dealing with a comment that someone was so bold as to say, it's because you're a female. I usually work so hard to assume that everything is coming from a neutral perspective that I think I overlook some of those barbs that are aimed at me in that way. I had people who even were, you know,

issuing some complaints say you know they often bring in female leaders during times of financial distress right and I see the head nods you know it's and I thought well gosh that's interesting that just it's coincidental that it happened to me right and so I started to go back and look through the news and look at some of the people who had dealt with some of the stuff before and the institutions that really struggled with financial health and there was a pattern there

Now, was that on the board's mind when they hired me? I don't assume so. But I do know I happen to be a person who had what would appear to be the right qualifications at the right time to deal with this kind of issue. So...

I never felt it was directly aimed at me because I was a female. But I will say I was criticized more heavily and probably challenged about my credentials more than others. I remember in one of the student protests, one of the students said, do you feel like you're competent to do your job? And I thought, no.

And first of all, they were all wearing masks because it was kind of in the middle of COVID time, deep COVID times. And I didn't hear it at first. And so I said, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. And they said it again. And I thought, I think I just heard somebody question whether I'm confident enough. And I thought, okay, well, I'm not going to be arrogant about this. Of course, I just answer the question. Yes, of course, I believe I'm confident to do this. But have they asked anybody else that lately? I don't think so. So...

You know, Ruchika, I wish I could say it was completely neutral, but I have to say I think there are a lot of influences there. You know, I'm also a gay female, and that adds another layer, I think, subconsciously for some people, politically for other people. And so I think there are just a lot of dynamics going on at that moment. I want to follow up on that. So you were starting to piece together what might have been a pattern,

I'm wondering if that softened the blow for you, or how did it affect the way you felt in the moment? Well, I felt like there was a team of other people in the world that needed me to be courageous in that moment. I knew that my campus needed me to be. I knew that...

The young students needed me to be. They needed to see what honest debate and different point of views looked like, different approaches, different ways to get your point across. But I felt like in that moment, gosh, I can't just tuck tail. I can't back down. I have to be the woman in the arena, so to speak, right? Like I literally was surrounded by these students. And I thought this is their opportunity to see how to handle being a

Questions, right? How to handle being criticized. How to handle a moment when you disagree with so many people and you're feeling that heat. Mm-hmm.

I have to say that I'm really glad we're having this conversation because I think a lot of the traditional management and leadership advice of criticism is good and just let it roll off your back and you can't be liked and respected. So, you know, just it's fine. Just get over it has never resonated with me. And even more so as I see, again, you know, women leaders, leaders of color, leaders with other historically excluded identities, you

you know, come under a quote unquote fire because that ability to be like, it's okay if I'm not liked or I don't care if someone criticizes me,

is really uniquely, I would say, reserved for people who've just historically not had their authority questioned. I've also received criticism, Patty, on my competence when I've taught at universities. In a class of 20, I can receive 18 student evaluations that are like, this is wonderful. I'm so glad this was a great course. I learned a lot.

And there'll be two which will say, is she even qualified to teach or like, I didn't like this course or I didn't like this class. And I would say the last decade for me has been focused on figuring out how to unlearn the messaging that I was deeply conditioned with that I have to be likable and palatable to everyone. And at some point, you just have to say there are going to be people who are just not going to like the message.

And I think for some of us, we have to understand that our message might be sound. And there are people who are going to look at us being the deliverers of that message and will always just be challenged and triggered by the fact that it's someone in this package delivering this message that doesn't align with what they believe. And you have to be okay with that too.

That's a great, great point, Ruchika. Thank you for sharing that. It triggers something for me too, because I, I too, I mean, I want to be liked. Who doesn't want to be liked? So it stings when people attack you personally or say, I don't like you, Amy B. Oh, thanks for reminding me. You know, I'm so sorry. But you have to have the courage to be disliked. And that's something that I think we're not so practiced at.

What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform.

With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. So I want to talk about how we go about taking this moment of attack, of criticism, and processing it so that we can

deal with it in a way that is constructive. So that's what you were able to do, Patty, when, you know, people came after you, often with wrong information. How did you process that? Well, it's not easy, no matter how much you think you're ready for it, no matter how much you think you've practiced or prepared, it's never easy.

But I will say one of the things that I do before I get into those moments, and you typically know when those moments are coming, right? We've said something that challenges other people's beliefs or commitments. We have an issue on the table that's causing disagreement in some way. And so you kind of know what's bubbling up.

The first thing for me is to be prepared, right? So I want to know that I know where I'm getting my data when I'm saying things that I believe are factual. And not only do I have to have the data, I need to have those sources ready. I was in a community of people who really wanted to know

why and where and how about most everything. So be prepared is the first thing. Know your sources, expect the tough questions. I actually had somebody, I said, ask me some questions that you would think will come my way. And people would ask me questions and I'd think, wow, you think they're going to ask that? And lo and behold, I would get some of those questions. But it was great because I had already prepared my mind to hear it, whether I had prepared an answer or not.

I had prepared my mind not to be shocked in that moment or caught off guard. And then the second thing I tell you, there are several things, but the next thing I would tell you is to listen honestly and with humility. It's really hard to do in those moments to listen honestly because you've made a decision or you've made a statement where you've committed to something. You've made a decision and you're sharing that with people. And so you already have a bias about which way you think things should go.

But to listen honestly to people and hear that there may be other perspectives or other ideas, or you may not have considered the impact on as broad a group as will happen. That's really important to listen and to have them see you personally.

And really be aware that you are listening and that you're not so overly confident that you wouldn't consider feedback and criticism in that way. And then, as I said earlier, focusing on what was said as opposed to how it makes me feel. And that's something that I grew up with. My dad was one of those people who actually said that. There were times when he would say something and I'd hear it.

much more critically than what he intended it to be. But if I just looked at the words, if I just listened to the words, I could turn down my feeling meter a little bit and say, okay, it's not as sensitive as I'm making it. I just need to get over that first emotional hump. So listening to what was said is really critical. And then the last thing I would tell you that I do in those moments is

is I literally say to myself, rise above your circumstances. Rise above your circumstances. These things are what they are. You may not be able to change anything about what is happening in this moment, but I have the power to react in a way that is representative of me, of my beliefs, of my values, and puts my best foot forward.

Almost every day, though, in the life of a president, you're having to remind yourself of those things. But in those moments, it's especially important. You know, the part about hearing what was actually said makes a lot of sense to me when people are asking, why are you making those cuts? Does it play in at all when someone is questioning your competence? Yeah.

It's more challenging in those moments. When I heard that particular student ask me that question, I really had to remember, you know, we are in an environment that is designed for people to be challenged with new ideas, with ideals that we don't agree with. I mean, if you can't have a protest on a college campus, where the heck can you, right? And so I really didn't want to squelch

The opportunity that these students had to learn how to express their displeasure, how to share information, how to receive information, how to challenge somebody. It's okay to challenge someone in authority. My part of this was making sure I participated in this event. And that meant answering their questions.

I didn't feel that it would be helpful to avoid a question, no matter whether it was about me or about what was going on in the moment. But I knew that my answer to that question would set the stage for questions that came later. So it was important for me to say, yes, I'm confident, and then to look to the next person who had a question. If I had stayed in that moment

with that student or given them a cross look or, you know, made a face, that would have been the news story. And that's not what we were there for. You know, in this day of social media being the immediate news scoop, I mean, everybody's walking around with a video camera and those things can be shared with thousands of people instantaneously, right? Right.

I think what that has created for us is it's removed an essential part of our response and conversational negotiating, and that is the pause. Somebody hears information and immediately shares it on the internet. They have an opportunity to stop.

to think about it, to process it a little bit, to ask questions. And when we're put on the spot in those moments, we have to create that pause in order to let our minds catch up and our emotions tune down. And I really feel like that's what we're having to do much more quickly. So in that moment, when I was in my office with the students, I had to say, turn down the emotions, breathe,

And respond. I mean, one way to do that, I have found, is to say, you know, that's a really interesting question. Give me a second to think about that. Even though what's going through my mind is, oh, my God, get me out of here. Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I really find so much of commonality in what Patty is talking about with other experiences I've had with criticism. Now, when someone makes an ad hominem attack on like who I am as, you know, as a woman, as a person of color or whatever it is.

For me, I've had to really categorize that as like bullying. They had their own feelings about who I was and that's coming out and it has very little to do with me. Now, I've also been criticized for the work I've done around talking around equity and inclusion, right? And Patty, in those moments, I think of like,

The moments I'm sure you had to go through where you are ultra prepared, you've checked in with your community. And I loved what you said about asking those questions, because I remember when I wrote my first book around gender bias in the workplace, it was really helpful to actually have people in my community even ask me questions about

you know, don't you think that if the gender pay gap was real, every organization would just hire women because, you know, it would be so much cheaper to do that. So to be able to have people ask me those questions is,

really prepared me for when I got on stage and when I was going to face that, you know, criticism or criticism of my arguments. And in those moments, it was easier to sort of separate out that this is a criticism of the argument rather than me personally. So having a community around you to really catch you and bolster you in these moments is super important too. Oh, sure. Undoubtedly. Yeah. Yeah.

So Amy, I'm really curious. Are there other stories or other situations where you've faced the fire and how you dealt with it? Yeah. You know, I haven't been in the situation either of you has been in. Never anything close. There was a time when I was a new manager where a junior member of a very large team I oversaw

walked into my office as I was working and sat down in front of my desk and said something like a bunch of us wanted to give you a piece of feedback and I have to admit the moment I heard feedback I thought oh god it's the f-word I don't want feedback but what I said was okay what's the feedback and

And the feedback was that people didn't like that I always seemed to be multitasking and never paying attention to them when they needed me to pay attention to them. Now, as it happened, as I was receiving this piece of feedback, I was answering email. So as I'm hearing this feedback, which is criticism, my first response was definitely fight or flight.

You know, just I could feel my heart racing. I could feel my anger rising. And I kind of just wanted to walk out of my own office and shut the door behind me. But I was able to take a breath and say, you know what? You're right. You're absolutely right. You're not the first person who's pointed this out to me. Shame on me for not correcting this behavior.

And I mean, it took guts for her, for this junior member of my team to walk in to her new boss's boss's office and to deliver this message. I hated thinking that that's what my management sort of boiled down to for so many people. And in the end, I had to just own that, you know what, this is entirely an unforced error on my part.

So thereafter, whenever anyone walked into my office, I shut my laptop, partly to say I'm listening to you, partly to keep my eye from wandering to the screen. I had to kind of tame myself that way. So you know what I love about that story, though, Amy, and thank you for sharing it, because I feel like I've been there as well as a manager, and I've received some of that similar feedback lately.

And what I didn't hear that I appreciate was an apology in what you said to that person, that you responded and you accepted the criticism and you accepted the possibility that it was legitimate, that it was real, that it was not just their perception, but it was actually happening. And if it's constructive criticism, they're not looking for an apology. They're looking for change. And you gave it to them.

And the other part of what I heard, which I think is really important for anyone listening, especially around criticism and feedback, is if you're hearing it from multiple sources, then pay attention. You know, and sometimes I'm asked to advise on like, if one person out of the blue says this thing and you're completely caught off guard versus if you're hearing echoes of this criticism or this feedback from various people, then it's time to pay attention.

Unlike any class, book, or podcast, Strawberry.me Personal Coaching gives you something unique, a professional partner who's 100% focused on your success. It's not about advice. Your coach will ask the right questions, helping you uncover hidden strengths, break through obstacles, and move forward with confidence.

If you're ready to unlock your full potential, visit strawberry.me slash HBR for a $50 credit. That's strawberry.me slash HBR. I want to come back to something that you were talking about, Patty. You know, you walked into a situation as a university president where you had to cut the budget and you took responsibility for the decisions you made.

How much did you talk about responsibility in that moment? And where did you draw the line for responsibility?

你对哪些事情负责，哪些事情不负责。例如，你对预算状况不负责。你负责的是你对削减做出的决定，对吗？没错。尽管如果你问一些抱怨的人，他们会说，你在当校长之前是首席财务官，对吗？我的意思是，首席财务官不是，你知道的，处理这些事情吗？首席财务官不会指导一些这些决定吗？我知道我刚任命了一位首席财务官。所以……

如果我想在那一刻保护自己，把它归咎于首席财务官，我就是在出卖我的首席财务官。对。所以让大学社区明白，责任最终由校长承担，这一点非常重要。无论组织中其他任何地方发生什么，我可能没有直接参与。

但我创建了一个系统，或者我允许一个系统继续存在，或者我雇佣了在这个系统中做出这些决定的人。这是无法逃避的。当你处于顶端时，是完全无法逃避的。所以我对所有事情都承担责任。我没有用那些词来谈论责任，但当我被问到这个问题时，我确实说，作为首席财务官，我向校长提供建议。但最终，校长做出决定。

这就是我们今天的处境。这就是我要提醒他们的。我在这里。我现在是校长。无论我得到什么建议，无论有多少人参与其中，决定权都在我手中。

所以，对我来说，大声说出这一点很重要，这样我的团队才能继续充满信心地工作，因为我让他们在那里是有目的的，他们所做的事情很重要，我会保护他们。我会成为我们共同努力的代言人，这些努力对大学很重要。我不会让他们上台说，为预算问题辩护。

我可能会请他们阐明一些我可能不知道的事实。但最终，责任在我身上。对。我认为我们都可以同意，互相推诿责任是不好的。但我也在想，是否可能承担过多的责任，以及你如何知道自己是否越界了。对此有什么想法吗？

是的，这太难了。我不知道是否有人已经解决了这个问题。但我确实看到女性领导者因为没有表现出足够的同理心而受到抨击，而且不够热情，不够……

流泪，或者表现得不像，你真的够关心吗？你真的承担责任了吗？你真的负责任吗？我认为，在任何权力职位上的所有领导者都必须能够展现脆弱性，并表明这些都是艰难的决定。而且

我们受到的标准真的不一样。所以，如果女性觉得我们需要承担比我们应该承担的更多的责任，那是因为我们一直都被塑造，也被奖励和惩罚，承担比我们可能需要的更大的负担。当批评导致压力要求撤回决定时，这种情况是如何发生的？

是的，我认为很多，你知道的，Amy Edmondson 博士关于心理安全和智能失败的研究，我认为这在这些情况下非常相关，对吧？因为你确实看到有些人被允许进行智能失败。所以，你知道，你做了一个决定，你受到了很多批评，然后你说，好吧，我实际上已经考虑过了。所以在这些情况下，如果你确实需要撤回或改变一个决定，你

再次，你会被视为一个优柔寡断的人，这是女性不幸面临的另一个挑战。但同样，如果你从，你知道的，Therese Houston 博士关于女性如何做决定以及女性如何承担风险的工作来看，你会意识到很多批评是

也是性别偏见。你知道，女性实际上做出了伟大的决定，我们确实能够很好地承担计算风险。但同样，关于我们决策和风险承担能力的许多说法，不幸的是，阻碍了事实。Ruchika，你的观点很棒。我想补充一点，从轶事来看，

我认为女性在提出并实施决定之前，会花更多时间来构建和支持或争取对某个想法的支持。所以，那是，

我只是在一些男性同行身上没有看到足够的这种现象，他们会走出去，真的想听听其他人怎么说。你相信什么？他们不像把想法抛出来那样多地测试想法，你有点像你做出反应，然后我们决定，然后我们去做。但从轶事来看，我想说的是，就撤回决定而言，根据我的经验，女性在做出决定之前，更谨慎地建立支持。

我很高兴你这么说，因为，再次，我认为很多现有的领导力建议，这种像做一个不慌不忙的领导者，永远，永远不要表现出任何情绪，永远不要质疑一个决定。你真的不需要达成共识，因为领导者会做出艰难的决定。

这不仅是不好的建议，而且对，再次，是第一批、少数或唯一的领导者来说尤其有害。所以我认为这里有很多需要改变的地方。再次，我很高兴我们正在就这个问题进行细致的讨论。有时你确实需要撤回决定。你知道，你学到了一些你应该知道但不知道的事情，你必须为此承担责任。但是

撤回决定本身并不代表领导力薄弱。不，它实际上表明你倾听。它表明你可以被说服，随着事实的变化和现实的变化，你也可以适应，你必须成为一个敏捷的决策者，要知道在任何时刻，因素都可能发生变化，而该决定可能不再合理。嗯哼，嗯哼。

这次谈话很棒。Ruchika，我一直很喜欢和你聊天。谢谢。我也是。Patti，很高兴见到你。是的。感谢你这样做。哦，非常感谢你。很高兴见到你们两位。我今天从你们两位那里都学到了东西。所以谢谢你们。太棒了。我也是。我也是。非常感谢你们所有人。真的。这就是《要点》第四季的全部内容，这意味着如果你还没有听过，还有三个其他季的系列节目可以收听。