Even though nearly everyone engages in these negative behaviors at some time, I think it’s worth defining them to clarify the strategies they employ.

CRITICISM — Making disapproving judgments. Often this is a way to show that the other person’s pain is their fault, which relieves us of an obligation to help.

CONTEMPT — To despise or dishonor; to question someone’s honesty or integrity. This is usually used to deny the pain or undermine its validity. We don’t have to share what doesn’t exist.

DEFENSIVENESS — Putting up barriers to avoid a challenge or criticism; disagreeing over circumstances or facts. Like criticism, this is usually used to deny fault or personal responsibility and thus our obligation to help.

STONEWALLING — Delaying or blocking by refusing to answer questions or by giving evasive replies. In other words, when all else fails, we simply ignore what we don’t want to see or deal with.

It was from him I learned: Let your energy impact the people you’re talking to, as opposed to the other way around.

My favorite was “Make the charitable assumption,” a reminder to assume the best of people, even when (or perhaps especially when) they weren’t behaving particularly well. So, instead of immediately expressing disappointment with an employee who has shown up late and launching into a lecture on how they’ve let down the team, ask first, “You’re late; is everything okay?”

Danny encouraged us to extend the charitable assumption to our guests as well. When someone is being difficult, it’s human nature to decide they no longer deserve your best service. But another approach is to think, “Maybe the person is being dismissive because their spouse asked for a divorce or because a loved one is ill. Maybe this person needs more love and more hospitality than anyone else in the room.

I’m always interested in what others, and not just the esteemed critic from The New York Times, think about what we’re doing. If your business involves making people happy, then you can’t be good at it if you don’t care what people think. The day you stop reading your criticism is the day you grow complacent, and irrelevance won’t be far behind.

Most of us have no difficulty at all in delivering praise; that’s the fun part of being a boss. But it’s hard to criticize someone. So I spend a lot of time with my managers talking about criticism—how to deliver it, how to receive it, and maybe most important, how to think about it. We all want to be liked, and when you give someone a note about what they could be doing differently and better, you run the risk of losing their goodwill. That’s why I say there is no better way to show someone you care than by being willing to offer them a correction; it’s the purest expression of putting someone else’s needs above your own, which is what hospitality is all about. Praise is affirmation, but criticism is investment.”