A feedback story
Yesterday I was working on an article about feedback.
One of the ideas I want to convey in my article is that feedback is different from judgment or evaluation. Judgments speak to a person’s character. Evaluations assess the quality or goodness of work or behavior.
If you really want other people to hear your feedback, describe behavior or events so that people recognize themselves. Leave out the judgments and evaluations. Evaluations and judgments spark defensiveness, not listening. (If you are a manager, there is a time to evaluate whether work results and behavior are adequate for the needs of the company—but it’s not when you are giving feedback.)
So I was working on this article, when I received this email:
I went on over to the AYE front page and looked at the headers. And, yes, indeed, the headers for the last several weeks said “For You Reading Pleasure.”
I responded to the feedback giver via email:
And then I fixed the problem.
I suspect that if the note I received had said something like
I would have reacted differently. I would still have fixed the problem, but I might have grumped a little and felt unfarily denigrated. And my relationship with the other person would have subtly eroded.
Fortunatley, the feedback didn't judge or evaluate. It described the work result in a way I could recognize.
I was grateful, because I hadn’t noticed the typo (and then replicated it for several weeks with the not-always-helpful auto-fill feature).
And I felt like the feedback giver had taken the effort to help me.
A little serendipity to have an experience of congruent feedback to go with my article writing.
One of the ideas I want to convey in my article is that feedback is different from judgment or evaluation. Judgments speak to a person’s character. Evaluations assess the quality or goodness of work or behavior.
If you really want other people to hear your feedback, describe behavior or events so that people recognize themselves. Leave out the judgments and evaluations. Evaluations and judgments spark defensiveness, not listening. (If you are a manager, there is a time to evaluate whether work results and behavior are adequate for the needs of the company—but it’s not when you are giving feedback.)
So I was working on this article, when I received this email:
Subject: AYE front page
Hi, Esther:
[snip]
the header typo: "For *You* Reading Pleasure" keeps getting perpetuated.
[snip]
I went on over to the AYE front page and looked at the headers. And, yes, indeed, the headers for the last several weeks said “For You Reading Pleasure.”
I responded to the feedback giver via email:
Subject: Re:AYE front page
Oh, gosh!
Thanks for letting me know!
And then I fixed the problem.
I suspect that if the note I received had said something like
“You're being sloppy with your proofreading” (judgment) or
“You work on the AYE page lately has not been up to par" (evaluation)
I would have reacted differently. I would still have fixed the problem, but I might have grumped a little and felt unfarily denigrated. And my relationship with the other person would have subtly eroded.
Fortunatley, the feedback didn't judge or evaluate. It described the work result in a way I could recognize.
I was grateful, because I hadn’t noticed the typo (and then replicated it for several weeks with the not-always-helpful auto-fill feature).
And I felt like the feedback giver had taken the effort to help me.
A little serendipity to have an experience of congruent feedback to go with my article writing.
Labels: feedback
