Don't criticize condemn or complain.

Principle number one in Dale Carnegie’s classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People is “Don’t criticize condemn or complain. Easy to say; easy to remember; challenging for some of us to implement.


And it’s very weird – criticism seems to be defined by the criticized – not by the criticizer. Have you ever been just giving information and someone – like your spouse – says “Stop criticizing.” In my mind it wasn’t criticism.


Anyway today the reverse happened. Ellie and I were doing our annual “Put the deck furniture and the hoses into storage for the winter” exercise. Ellie wanted to be sure the chairs were clean of bird droppings before I hauled them to the garage attic. So after she’d cleaned them, and they had dried in the sun, I started to carry them. And I noticed one chair still had bird pooh on it.
I said “Didn’t you clean this chair?” Now I know that wording a question that way can – and often is – heard as criticism. It’s possible that I was even a little sarcastic (maybe). But Ellie took that comment as helpful information. She appreciated that I noticed!


So here’s a clue to criticism. In an area where the other person is confident and competent – like seeing dirt, making things clean, taking care of stuff – a comment like mine is helpful. Had I made the same comment in an area of less confidence or competence, it would have been seen as negative criticism.


So I guess that brings us to how important it is to know the other person. That’s another idea from the same book: "Try to honestly see things from the other person’s point of view."