If you're going to point out someone else's mistake, you should first point out something they did well.  At least, that's what you're supposed to do to maintain polite, friendly relationships with people.

Unfortunately, I've been subjected to this enough to know that when I get paid a compliment, it's only because the person compliment me wants to point out a flaw.  I may be exaggerating a bit, more often than not, they need to point out a problem that I need to fix. I am an engineer, fixing problems is what I do.  I am used to dealing with having problems pointed out.  What is far more painful is when this technique is used to point out what someone believes to be a personal flaw. It could be the person believes I behaved improperly or issues a warning. A wise person can take criticism, though, so I try to listen to the criticism and see if it is valid.

The problem, though, is that some people only offer compliments right before they offer criticism.  There a two thing that happen as the result of that:
1. You don't hear the compliment.
2. You develop a conditioned response to put up your defenses whenever you get a compliment.

Seriously, someone comes up to me and says, "I really liked what you did..."
In my head I think, "Great, what did I do wrong now?".

I don't know the solution to that, but how well I take the criticism depends less on whether or not it was softened with a compliment, but whether or not I trust the person it came from.

whatever.

Yesterday though, our pastor had a good sermon, but one of his slides had a reference written wrong.  I used the old compliment, then correct tactic.  I only offered the correction, in case he wanted to update his slides later, but what seemed to happen is that the correction I offered seemed to undermine my compliment.  I wished I had only offered the compliment, because to me, that was far more important than the error I noticed.

Dealing with people sucks.  Why does it have to be so hard?