John Siracusa:

Like greed, criticism gets a bad rap, especially when it’s presented in large doses. It’s impolite. It’s unnecessarily obsessive. It’s just a bummer. But the truth is, precious little in life gets fixed in the absence of a good understanding of what’s wrong with it to begin with. This character flaw, this curse, this seemingly most useless of skills is actually the yin to the more widely recognized yang of creative talent.

It’s like the professor who tore apart your papers. Hated at the time, but now you look back and think about how much better a writer you are.

I don’t think any creative business can succeed without serious (and sometimes harsh) criticism coming either externally or internally. It has less to do with measurement than it has to do with this editing eye.