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I believe that criticism is one of the lowest level skills–because anyone can do it.  And criticism has little value for a supervisor or manager whose job it is to improve the performance and value of subordinates.  The fact that performance reviews are often built around criticism is a clear sign that the manager’s skills are in need of improvement.  People who have a performance difficulty need help to identify and correct the cause of weak performance.  It can be a skill deficiency, a process problem, a lack of motivation, whatever.  In any case, what’s needed is a system for coaching not criticism.