When we are pondering a decision about our careers, we often seek advice from our friends and family to aid us in making the right call.

While there’s nothing wrong with keeping your people in the loop with what’s happening, we have a strong body of evidence that suggests the most powerful and effective criticism comes from people not so close to us.

In the month of April I’ll be facilitating a meeting between a small group of acquaintances. We don’t know much about each other personally, but we will give each other strong, honest criticism on our business plans/career choices.

This is the kind of feedback we cannot receive from our families and friends. The people offering criticism will not couch or restrain their remarks. People close to us will hold back and soften their position to appear supportive. This meeting is designed to get things done.

The participants in this meeting will hear this unfiltered criticism offered under this criteria:
1) The feedback is offered in the spirit of helpfulness
2) The people at the meeting have to be a little vulnerable. If everyone has no doubts, then the meeting is a waste of time. We can have those kinds of meetings at work!

Here’s an article from Time on offering and receiving criticism.

John Scott is the author of “Destination: Reinvention”, now on sale in the Amazon book store.  Join John for his online class“Reinvention: You, Only Better” , a one-hour Google hangout about organizing and amplifying your job search. April 11th, 2013, 7pm PDT.