Listen to the critics. Ignore the critics. Both are essential to being effective.

I think there are people who live in delusion about their skills, gifts, callings etc., People sink too much money and time into business’ and ideas that go no where and even sacrifice their families for unwise directions in life based on a bad evaluation of the variables. This is why we must go to the people around us, who we trust and love, and seek their advice about our ideas and direction – and we must listen.

Sometimes.

There are many times that leaders need to believe in their ideas and their direction even though people may criticize them. Blessed are the persecuted, right? It’s hard for us to think back to a world before the iPhone, iPad or even Find Nemo but before any of these things hit market – here is what the public was saying:

iPhone

“At $500 it cost too much to be successful. And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard.”

By the end of 2010, Apple had sold more than 90 million iPhones and it reaped more than half of the total profits generated in the global cell phone market.

iPad

“I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard—in other words a notebook—will be the mainstream…there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say ‘Oh I wish Microsoft had done it…a stylus for input will prevail. I will eventually turn out to be right or dead.” ~Bill Gates

In less than a month Apple sold one million iPads – twice as fast as iPhone took to reach that mark. By March 2011 fifteen million had been sold – the most successful product launch in history to that point.

Pixar

Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disney, in an email to staff that Disney would be in a better negotiating position after Finding Nemo came out. “Yesterday we saw for the second time the new Pixar movie, Finding Nemo, that comes out next May. This will be a reality check for those guys. It’s okay, but nowhere near as good as their previous films. Of course they think it’s great.”

Eisner’s evaluation of the movie was wrong, very wrong. Finding Nemo, became Pixar’s (and Disney’s) biggest hit to that point, beating out the Lion King, grossing $868 million worldwide.

So remember – sometimes the critics are right about you and you need to listen and change what you do and how you do it to be more effective in light of their criticism. Each week in our service debrief I delve for things from our staff that didn’t connect with people. I don’t want to simply sit around and say “this went well, etc.,” I want to fix the last 10%. I want to listen to things that didn’t land and adjust them to more clearly communicate the gospel to a wary, post-Christian people. Sometimes that means having to swallow your pride and agree that you may have been wrong.

But sometimes it means believing in what you’re doing even though there are critics. It’s always been this way. And it always will be. Be encouraged today leader, pastor, soccer mom. The crowd plays the crowd. That’s their job. Keep going. Because your job is to have a long-term view beyond the emotion of the moment. That’s what Moses did. That’s what Abraham did. That’s what Paul did. That’s what Jesus did.

To see a preferred future and point people there, even if the people are crying out for the comfort of Egypt. Even if they think your product is priced too high, needs a stylus, or that your latest thing isn’t as good as the thing before it. They may just be wrong. Very wrong.