Taking it Personally

Taking responsibility in business if often mistaken by taking it personally.  To me they are two different subjects completely.  When you have your own business or are employed to someone else’s company, taking responsibility would mean that you see the project / process in hand through in the most efficient and effective way and do the best you are able to do under the offered circumstances.  There are no needs for someone to follow up to see if you are doing what you are supposed to.  You are on time checking pulse on your deliverables. You have the sense of ownership.  You take pride in what you do and it shows through delivery.  For someone who takes ownership of whatever they are doing, criticism – constructive or destructive, direct or implied, sincere or insincere – comes as just that; criticism.  They are not criticizing “you”, they are criticizing the outcome.

Fair enough, you are going to say, but I was behind the outcome.  Yes you were, but you are also forgetting that I said earlier: “do the best you are able to do under the offered circumstances”. The one who is doing the criticizing may not even be aware of what circumstances were.  If you take the comments offered “personally”, then the wall of defense goes up, you draw your sword and are ready to behead the criticizer. If you do not take the comment as a direct attack on you however, you would be willing to have a conversation to get to the bottom of it.

Unfortunately in many businesses “taking it personally” has become more of a trend.  In larger organizations you see the most tears shed and hearts broken when there is a performance assessment, or an award ceremony.  Sometimes managers are mandated to come back with couple of chosen ones from the team as a low performer, regardless of how they have performed.  When the manager relays the message to the employee, his/her confidence is crushed.  They try for days to talk about it to everyone and justify their cause.  They are disheartened and going to work in the morning becomes a chore rather than a pleasure.  At this point, they have taken the manager’s feedback personally. 

Remember that everybody’s opinion is exclusively the product of their own life and reality. Look around and you will see that it is always easier to get offended, have an internal fight, and or believe what they have said; than thinking about it, understand where it comes from and let it go.  It takes a strong person not to take things personally.  Hear what they say; accept it as a reflection of their little world; understand their level of self-confidence and self-reflection, then, let it go. Let it disappear.

This is also true when you seek advice about what your plans are.  You will hear a range of emotions come out from: “Wow! Go for it!”, to “Good luck with that”, or “You need to be more realistic.”

Does this indicate that the first person believed in you? Not at all.  This just means that they believed in themselves.  They did not have an issue imagining something of that magnitude.  To them it was an absolute possibility.  Likewise the others, were not trying to say “you” cannot do it; they were saying in their little world of reality, that cannot be done. It is not a possibility for them.

When hearing a criticism, an advice, an insult, or a praise, always reconnect back to your world and your awareness.  You are the only one who knows how true or false that is.  By taking things personally and taking their feedback to your heart, you would be doing yourself a huge injustice.