A couple points about reviews, reviewers and reviewees: 1. First, all review systems are based on the subjective biases of those doing the reviews. There is no objective review system. Even when the reviewer is a professional whose job it is to review, they often get it incredibly wrong because of their own biases. For example: MobyDick, the reviewer wrote: "First, we must ask, does it have to be a whale? While this is a rather delightful, if somewhat esoteric, plot device, we recommend an antagonist with a more popular visage among the younger readers. For instance, could not the Captain be struggling with a depravity towards young, perhaps voluptuous, maidens?" ...of Rudyard Kipling: “...you just don’t know how to use the English language.” ...of D.H. Lawrence and his Lady Chatterley's Lover: “...for your own sake do not publish this book.” ...of Steven King: “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.” ...Louisa May Alcott's Little Women: “Stick To Teaching.” The Beatles were rejected by numerous record labels and told that there was no market for boy bands with guitars. Too bad for them. Successful authors, musicians, etc. recognize and accept the subjectivity of ratings/reviews and move on. 2. Locus of control. There is a continuum from internality to externality (see the Rotter Scale) in how we explain or interpret events in our life. The first stage of my career was working in prisons in North Carolina with young inmates. Most of them had one thing in common. They didn't think they were responsible for being there. They all had a story about how the "other guys" got them in trouble. If we could have caught those other guys we would have eliminated crime in North Carolina. They scored very high on the external locus of control scale. They didn't believe in their own responsibility, therefore they didn't process feedback and had great difficulty improving. Working with successful entrepreneurs and executives it was very apparent that they scored high on the internality side of the scale. That is why so many successful entrepreneurs first have failures, acknowledge and learn from those failures. They don't talk about "the other guys", they ask "what should I have done differently?" And, they move on quickly. They take action, doing what they can to determine future outcomes. Everyone of us have received bad reviews, the issue for instructors is how we react to those reviews. Do you blame the reviewer or the review system (the other guys), or do you accept the inevitable subjectivity and learn from any useful feedback? How this is answered is an obvious distinction between the more and less successful instructors, and the same could be said of authors, musicians, etc.
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