Delivering Feedback

Instead of telling people what I think of a proposal, a product, a feature, whatever, I ask them instead what they think. Were they thrilled with it? Absolutely love it? Most of the time I would hear, “It's okay,” or “It's not bad.” They would surmise from my facial expression that this wasn't the answer I was looking for. Come back when you are bu... See more

Feedback is ineffective if it does NOT result in the other person taking action in a way they or you feel good about.

As the remixed Dostoevsky quote goes, All effective feedback is alike; each piece of ineffective feedback is ineffective in its own way.

Ineffective feedback is feedback the other person…

…already knew, so they don’t do anything differ... See more

• #fyi — had a thought, no real hill to die on.


• #suggestion — there’s a hill, I’m not going to die on it. But this is what I would do if I were you.


• #recommendation — I’m climbing the hill, I won’t die on it. But I’ve thought about this a lot, and don’t ignore the feedback.


• #plea — I don’t like dying on hills and that’s not really what we do, but this i

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