In a recent blog, Solution-Focused Change: The compliment and the acrimony, the very productive and always interesting solution focused blogger Coert Visser talks about Maya Angelou’s stance of not letting neither compliments nor acrimony disturb her work, since work should be a reward in itself.

Maya Angelou says: The reward for the doing must be the doing. When people tell her they love her work, she responds with a simple, “Thank you.” And when called a “liar, or hack or worse -I’ve been called all those things- I say, “Thank you.”. When people tell her they love her work, she responds with a simple, “Thank you.” And when called a “liar, or hack or worse -I’ve been called all those things- I say, “Thank you.“

So how would she respond to the compliment: “What is really impressive about you is that you respond with “thank you” to both compliments and critiscism, in order to be able to better focus on your work. That’s really a nice idea”? Is it a good idea to be immune to this compliment too?

To be independent from either good and negative responses to your work is an interesting idea. And perhaps this is useful for some people. For most people, including myself, I see some problems with this stance.

I don’t think it is possible for most people, or even diserable, to be immune to compliments. For one, it is dis-respectfull for the person giving the compliment. (Angelou is probable aware of that since she still responds with “thank you” to the complimenter). But my main point is: this is also a failure to use the resource that appreciation from other people is. Other peoples appreciation can be regarded as a resource, something you draw upon to in your work. And by giving compliments, you become a resource for other people so.

Another reason to stay neutral to compliments, according to the qoutes from Angelou, is that taking a complement seriously means that you have to take the acrimony seriously too. I don’t think that follows. It is quite reasonable to have to different ways to respond, or fail to respond. You can take up the compliment and let the acrimony pass by. More interstingly, Buddhist thinking gives some clues to how to respond to acrimony. Angalou says, when she is bad-mouthed, she responds with “thank you” too. That can be seen as a bit buddist, a discipline of gratitude. Dalai Lama would teach you to respond with something like “thank you for teaching me humility” when given critique or being insulted. That is actually to use the negative as a resource.

So both the compliment and the insult can be used as resources, that would require though, that the reciever is very skilled in the discipline of gratitude and resourcefullness. Most people, including myself, aren’t that good in responding to negitivity. So, I would be very hesitant to use critiscism i my own work. I’m very generous with compliments though, both direct and, in particular, by using affirming questions. Since I strive to be in position where I am a resource for the people I work with.