Hearing and dealing with criticism constructively is something that we all struggle with. Right? Apparently not.

Bridgewater, one of the most successful hedge fund companies, has a culture of what they call radical transparency. This means that anyone can give constructive criticism to any employee of the company at anytime. This applies even to the CEO, Ray Dalio, the man who crafted this kind of challenging workplace.

So how does he ensure that such a practise doesn’t cause strife or break harmony within the team?

First, whenever they make a hire, they are upfront with the potential recruit about what the company culture is and ask whether he / she is willing.

Second, everybody gets scored not just on how good or bad they are doing, but also on how well they take critical feedback. One employee says, “When you have received a bad report on your performance, the only thing left that you can still do well on at that point, is in displaying graciousness and maturity in accepting that assessment”.

Another observation he made was that he was more open to criticism when he had solicited it. He was not that amenable to unsought advice.

Whether these practices are applicable in every kind of workplace, I am still skeptical of. I am sure there are more nuances to preventing discord in such a confrontational environment. Also, this might be applicable to fields like hedge fund management that rank performance much higher than all other factors, but cannot be universal. Each company has to decide for itself what are the core values they want to build on.

Having said that, there are still personal lessons here on how to get better at taking constructive criticism.

By humbling yourself enough to request for it.

By recognizing that graciousness in acceptance is a strength of character in itself.