Killing enthusiasm

Today I came with loads of enthusiasm in a general area of work. My concrete strategy, once I presented it to some colleagues, clearly had some obvious flaws, which were duly pointed out to me.

The effect of this was double.

• Firstly I started looking at the strategy in specific, and my rational 30% took the input and looked at how it could be improved.
• However, my emotional 30% also lost quite a bit of enthusiasm for the are in general as a result of this input.

I am using myself as an example of a more general concept. When someone presents their concrete idea for a general area, we are quick to criticise it and shoot it down. Sometimes with very good reasons as well. But by doing this we often throw out the baby with the bath-water.

Now, how do we balance our "desire to help through criticism" with the general desire of not killing the enthusiasm of the person we are "helping"? Should we sometimes put our rational mind aside and enthusiastically support a strategy we perhaps are not convinced by, simply because we trust that the enthusiasm of our colleague will get the project their anyway?