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It’s a new year. With another trip around the sun completed and ahead, we mortals often go to our cabinets to withdraw the long-procrastinated projects we someday hope to deploy. In that revitalized spirit of invention, people often ask me for my opinion on this or that idea. Often it’s a start-up business idea. Sometimes it’s an investment opportunity. Occasionally it’s a request for feedback on a manuscript. I’m sure you’ve been asked to be a sounding board for similar notions and found yourself in a similarly awkward situation.
“Hey, mind if I bounce something off you?”
I usually respond, “Why do you ask?”
You may ask yourself, “Why does he ask the question, ‘Why do you ask?'”
My question to your question is born of its own overarching question: Do you really want feedback, or do you just want me to tell you that what you are pitching is wonderful?
Yeah, you’ve been there. It’s a tough place to be, because it’s impossible to be sure what the other person is actually seeking. Is the seeker in need of a boost of self-esteem, where anything critical you offer is likely to triple that person’s therapy bills and end a rebound before it finds form? Is the pitch-person stealth-seeking your financial commitment, where any positive response on your behalf will be followed by a deal memo solicitation at a valuation that would make the Uber people blush? Is the ask truly heartfelt but the work so early and unedited that it could be more harmed than helped by a random response?
It’s not easy to offer an opinion on someone else’s work. Way more can go wrong than can go right.
I tend to find that most people who ask for my opinion don’t really want feedback. They want validation. If you’ve partaken in-depth of the creative process, you know they aren’t the same. Validation is net neutral. Feedback can save your ass.
What do I mean by that?
Validation is a bifurcated switch. If I say the work is good, you’ve heard all you need to hear. If I say I don’t think it’s good, you’ve heard exactly what you didn’t want to hear. The effect is net neutral because either way, I have added no value to your project. If I say it’s good, so what? You already thought it was good or you wouldn’t have shown it to me, so I’ve done nothing but increased your standing bias. That takes you nowhere you couldn’t have gone without me. If I say it’s bad, we may no longer be friends, not because I don’t want to be friends but by being honest (even if diplomatic) I have likely hurt your feelings. There isn’t much positive energy that can follow.
If feedback is what you seek and I have any grounded expertise to offer, then perhaps we have a place to go together. That feedback is almost certainly going to be nuanced (“this part makes some sense, that part not so much”) but it has to come your way without consequence to me or expectation of a secondary agenda that involves me. If I want to get involved, I promise I will let you know, but the act of giving you feedback should be a reward in itself. That means you have to enter into the feedback discussion with an openness to critique solely because you want your idea to improve, or perhaps decide instead you don’t want to waste any more time on it. There can be no ulterior motives or it’s not feedback, it’s evaluation. I don’t want to evaluate your work. That’s your job, not mine.
As an author, I seek feedback constantly. When I draft something, I always go out for feedback from a broad sample of demographics. When I get good feedback it can be life-changing, because anything that I have missed and you found I can fix. Is it painful? It’s horribly painful. Yet even worse than negative feedback is the silence of no feedback from someone who said they would offer it. That tells me with uncanny certainty that I have failed to connect with their voice. Do I regret asking? Never for a moment.
As much as we dread feedback, we actually should cherish it, because it is the only path from mediocrity to something that matters. The creative process is laden with setbacks, but each time we find a nugget of corrective action, we can improve. That’s what makes the creative process both daunting and healing. It is the reality of success quantified one fix at a time. It’s never fun to edit away what doesn’t work, but that’s how innovation at its finest evolves. There are no shortcuts. If you ask, be sure you want to listen for the answer. It may not be pleasant, like medicine, but hopefully, it makes us better one way or another, if it’s the right medicine.
Most people don’t know how to give useful feedback, especially tough feedback that can help us improve our thinking or channel it to more productive ends. Words of validation or invalidation are relatively easy to render and equally useless. Offering consistently constructive feedback is an art. Be careful whom you ask to help you, or you can really go astray.
If you don’t want feedback, don’t ask for it. If you ask for it, don’t be defensive when you get it. If you don’t ask for it, you probably will never reach your potential. If you do embrace it, you can make a small idea become a big idea. A big idea becomes something tangible when we add the necessary recourses and fight past the objections readily available from amateurs. Those who embrace feedback are resilient by nature. There is power in vulnerability. Embrace it, and the sky is the limit.
Do you still want my opinion? I don’t mind if you say no, but if you ask carefully, I’ll try to answer in the same honest spirit.
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I read the piece in isolation of any issues / agenda’s surrounding the platform which delivered it, and read it for what I could learn. I found it resonated with me. I have a startup and also need continual validation / feedback. Some people like things, other people don’t and I respect their right to. I also appreciate their right to, because once I see through their eyes, my decisions are all the better for it. To me as a businessman, this article gave me a lot of new things to ponder and digest. As a father, it gave me… Read more »
Thanks, Gregory. It sounds like you have the exact right attitude to succeed in both work and home life through openness and lifelong learning. I wish you a wonderful 2017.
Feedback. OK. You’re on the Good Men Project team – so here is some. I notice that your editorial policy is VERY heavy on censorship. Many folks who actually have something to say that differs from the party platform here are not really allowed to say it very often. This is, all too often, a forum where the editors don’t really want feedback, so much as they want validation. Of course, that’s the way a lot of forums are, where there is a pretense of wanting an open discussion, but the reality is something entirely different. As long as you… Read more »
Jack, I’m sorry that is how you feel, but my sense of our community discussion is that it is diverse, engaging, serious, heartfelt, and kind. Our only party line is that exchange of ideas reflects respect and dignity. If this isn’t working for you here it might be a matter of your preference. I’m quite comfortable with the tone we set and the hard work of our community to make a difference in the world. Our audience is also ever-growing, so while we make mistakes, overall I like our direction and position in public discourse.
Well, you may feel it is, Ken, but it’s not. You have progressive writers stating a viewpoint and even when faced with evidence keep on propping up the issue. Plus of course the moderation and never seeing a diverse view. Or gosh forbid actually acknowledging that the other person’s point had merit.
I’ve commented here before that this site in particular is more about positive puffery for only one vision. As long as you continually back slap each other for your wonderfulness of thought, you’ll never become good men, nor contribute to creating one. I’m with Jack.
Thanks for the comment, Mark. My sense is that communities tend to define themselves by shared values and common challenges. Every community cannot be all things to all people or it will lack a point of view. We understand that GMP is not the right place for everyone to participate, but we are quite heartened by what we see happening here.
Ken. That’s a fair point. You’re right, all basic communities do have a basic come from. I belong to a model specific motorcycle and sports car forums, so yes, it’s basically centered around those two vehicles. But I like Gregory’s point of getting a different view so as to learn and grow within even your own views. It just seems like here there is is only one point of view, lines drawn in the sand and an unwillingness to modify that point of view based on someone else’s views. To me that’s a common hallmark of the left, as one… Read more »
“To me that’s a common hallmark of the left” It is not a sign of the left at all. Certainly, there are elements of being unwilling to listen, and will throw around labels such as “racist!” and “misogynist!” at anyone and everyone. These people are being challenged from within the left now for the damage they have done (many commentators refer to such people as “The Regressive Left”) but let’s not pretend that only one political side does it. That’s arrogant and nonsensical. To the author: This site does delete opinions it doesn’t like and they don’t have to be… Read more »
I agree c Bob. If you’ll notice most of my. Comments I am clear about both sides doing this. .