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I'm going to go against the grain on this one. I personally value others' criticisms as one of the most important "forces" in my life. In my experience, it's not very difficult to determine if their criticism is self-serving or intended to hurt me. In most cases, it's not.
I think the "hold your friends close, and your enemies closer" motto is very true -- my "friends" are mostly yes-men who wouldn't dare criticize me. My best friends (and my enemies, too) are the ones who'd feel free to tell me what I was doing wrong.
I think it's the easiest way to elicit change.
The question, however, is whether you want to change. I think the people with the most difficulty taking criticism are those who don't want to change. And that's fine. You really shouldn't criticize someone who doesn't feel the need to change, because then it becomes self-serving criticism.
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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel
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