Neuroscience is telling us that our brain likes feedback to improve but also feels defensive when being criticised. Dilemma? It is good to hear others’s opinions about issues and choosing the best decision. So how do we tone down the defensive reaction and listen to ideas and feedback to assess their merit regardless of the source? Ideas and solutions can be seen separately from the person proposing them. Easy to write but hard to do. Humility from the source helps to accept and assess the content. An ability to see ideas as just ideas also helps. DeBono would call it green hat thinking. Mindfulness also helps by showing ways of seeing thoughts as merely thoughts and not criticism or provocation. Try radical transparency. Say what you mean without being mean.