It’s not always easy accepting feedback from others, especially when those people are your customers. After all, no one likes to be told that they aren’t right about something or that they’ve made a mistake. However, at AMI, we understand that feedback is essential and genuinely believe that it helps us grow and become better at what we do.
Some businesses tend to react poorly to constructive criticism, and unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, many react with defensiveness and anger. This can be highly problematic. Below are some ways AMI sees value in constructive criticism and how we use it to identify our weaknesses, maintain customer relationships, and be more successful in everything we do.
We Embrace It as An Opportunity
When a customer provides us with harsh feedback or a project isn’t received with the enthusiasm we expected, we take that as an opportunity to get curious and view the situation as “good friction.” We seek this friction out whenever we can because feedback is where growth, development, and breakthroughs happen. So instead of taking it personally, we ask ourselves what we can learn from the situation and where we can improve.
We Accept That It’s Essential for Becoming Our Best
One way we can become our best is by receiving feedback on what we do well and where we can improve. When we start to accept this, we become less defensive and comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like at the gym, we don’t strengthen our muscles if we are not pushed beyond our comfort zones. The same goes for accepting feedback. Even when we disagree with the criticism, we leverage it as an opportunity for growth.
We Always Assume Positive Intent
It’s human nature to take critical feedback personally. That’s why we have trained ourselves to take a step back and remind ourselves that the feedback giver’s intention most likely is to help us be the best we can be for them. Carol Dweck tells us that we can focus on having a “growth” mindset versus a “fixed” one in her research. A fixed mindset means we believe that talents and abilities are set in stone. Critical feedback can feel very personal when organizations think this because they’re less likely to think they can grow and fix it. At AMI, we strive every day to have a growth mindset.
We Are Open to Change
According to Forbes, we can’t grow as people without disruptive changes, and our companies can’t realize their full potential. While some organizations may view change as a negative thing, our team at AMI sees it as a way to encourage innovation, develop our employees, and better serve our customers day in and day out. As such, we encourage feedback – good and bad – and are always willing to hear our customers out because their opinions matter to us.
Constructive criticism is one of the only ways to learn about our weaknesses, and without it, we can’t improve. Unfortunately, when we’re defensive, instead of accepting and gracious, we run the risk of missing out on the vital insight our customers have to give. It’s not always easy, but it helps us continuously improve for the benefit of our current and future customers.
About AMI
AMI (Ace Manufacturing Industries Inc.) is a family-owned business launched in 1992 with 5 employees in a 4,000 square foot machine shop by Tom Krouth. From its early foundation in the manufacturing of complex and precision machined components, AMI has evolved and grown by a factor of 20X through planned expansion of services, equipment, technology, staff, and facilities under the leadership of second-generation CEO, Kelley Krouth into a full-service supplier for custom manufactured OEM parts.
Our value-added services include collaborative design, machining, contract manufacturing, assembly, painting, raw material procurement, testing, inventory management, and more. By providing complex contract manufacturing services under one roof, we deliver reduced shipping and handling costs to all AMI customers.
Visit our website to learn more: https://ami-mfg.com/