Final answer:
AARs are not critiques because they avoid negative feedback, focusing instead on identifying strengths and learning opportunities. Strengths-based management, advocated by Donald Clifton, aligns with this by emphasizing the development of an individual's strengths to enhance performance, but may lead to the neglect of weaknesses.
Step-by-step explanation:
Why aren't AAR critiques? The option that best explains why After Action Reviews (AARs) are not critiques is b) They avoid negative feedback. An AAR is a professional discussion of an event, focused on performance standards, that enables soldiers to discover for themselves what happened, why it happened, and how to sustain strengths and improve on weaknesses. It is a constructive review mechanism, not a critique, because its intent is to identify strengths and best practices, issues faced, and to learn what could be better next time, without assigning blame.
Strengths-based management, as researched by Donald Clifton, emphasizes focusing on an individual's strengths rather than weaknesses for organizational growth. Clifton's research suggests that these strengths, such as public speaking or the ability to plan events, provide the greatest opportunities for growth. However, a purely strengths-based approach can lead to the neglect of improving weaknesses and overuse of strengths, potentially interfering with performance as per Kaiser & Overfield (2011).