“You’re so smart — how can you be so dumb?”
“We should give you a prize for the worst idea we’ve seen in four years.”
Those harsh comments are directed at Karen Parhar, a beautiful young entrepreneur from Saskatoon, on tonight’s edition of Dragons’ Den.
To say the Dragons hate her business idea is an under-statement — they breathe fire at Karen!
How does Karen react to the scorching? You’ll have to watch to see — but meantime, let me ask you this: How would YOU react?
It’s never easy to hear negative feedback. And we all get feedback at some point. Most workplaces give annual performance reviews; some bosses make comments throughout the year, on a less formal basis.
When the comments are positive, that’s a beautiful thing! Everybody loves being told they’re doing a good job — but it’s a different story when we hear that we’re doing something wrong, or could be performing better.
In my opinion, any type of feedback is a gift. If someone is taking time to think about me, and share their perspective, I appreciate it. Based on what they say, I can get better at what I do, and hopefully, become more successful. To me, it says they care.
I saw some research years ago, done by an airline. They had discovered that customers who complain are potentially the most LOYAL customers. Their complaint showed they wanted to fix the relationship, and continue it. Those who didn’t complain simply left and took their business elsewhere.
There’s no question that the Dragons are quite brutal at times in their assessments. You’ll see them give a wide variety of feedback to about a dozen entrepreneurs tonight. Watch how the pitchers react. You can see some disregard the critique, figuring this is just reality television.
Others consider the feedback carefully, appreciating the independent assessment of their business and/or their pitching technique. They use the experience to make their next presentation that much better.
We all have the same choice when someone shares their views. We can either write them off as unfair — which does happen — or we can think about what we’ve been told, and decide if we want to make some changes in ourselves.
Karen Parhar tells me the Dragons offended her, but she acknowledges the experience was “helpful.” Whatever you think of her business idea tonight — you gotta love her attitude.
