Well–actually that was one of my parents successes– when ever we kids were critical of something– we were tasked to do it better–
complained about dinner? You just volunteered to cook the next night– think a story in a tv show was dumb? Sit down and write a better story..
By adulthood, I had internalized it (it does tend to make you very competitive)– and learned to not try some things– like sports– my older sister is only 5'4", but in first year of high school she made varsity basket ball– I never even bothered to try– I was never going to do better than her.. So, I took no interest in, or made an effort in, sports.
But it the same "can you do it better? Put up or shut up" attitude help get me back to college. In three years I went from drop out to graduate with a 3.87 gpa (yes, I admit, it is a second rate college, not university, but still, accredited, and not bad a showing.)
And I use the "device"– when I am teaching something, and someone makes an error–no problem– but should an other class participant make fun of the error–they find they are the next volunteer!– or tasked to do the "assignment" better...
In meetings, I set that up as "ground rule" – the person who has been assigned to be a "scribe" and write things down on the ‘easel pad' has no fear of misspelling a word– anyone who publicly ridicules a spelling or even just rudely calls out a correction– is immediately assigned the job of being scribe...(during breaks, any corrections that are needed are added..)
This lead to an interesting occasion.. A meeting addressing employee morale- was mistakenly scribed as employee morals– and our task: improve them!
