Does this suck?
An article about feedback
Drinking game: Take a shot for every time I say ‘feedback’
‘It’s nice’ is probably the most useless feedback I think you can ever receive or give. It works well enough to express feelings towards a piece of work. You can say that a book or movie is nice and I will understand that it was enjoyable for you. As feedback, ‘it’s nice’ doesn’t really pass anything across. It doesn’t tell me if what I have made is good/bad or what makes it good/bad or how it can be better, and this is usually what I personally want out of feedback.
I have a complex relationship with ‘feedback’ as I believe most people do. A lot of that complexity manifests as a reluctance to get the feedback. A while ago, someone I follow tweeted that when he puts out work, he is not looking to receive feedback, he is looking to receive praise. I share the same sentiment and I think that a lot of people do too. It's not because we are anti-feedback, it’s more that we feel like we are passed the feedback stage. By the time I put out work, I want you to interact with it as a consumer and not as a critic.
There is a sense of pride you have after creating a thing that feedback tends to steal away from you. After spending hours/days/weeks/months working on something, the last thing I want is for someone to tell me how bad it is. So mentally there is already that reluctance to have someone steal my joy.
When receiving feedback, people tend to be defensive. Take this situation that happened on twitter recently where a video creator went viral for a house tour video he had made. Amidst the attention he was getting, were many comments on his narration. I personally thought his narration was below par as well, for reasons I will come back to soon. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with his narration, instead, he thought people were hating on him because he had a Nigerian accent.
The amygdala is an almond-shaped cluster of neurons in the midsection of the brain. It is thought to play a roll in processing memory, decision-making and emotional responses. It is also the part of the brain that reacts to social threats. When receiving feedback (especially negative feedback), our brains tend to feel threatened. The disapproval or apparent disapproval from a social authority sparks the amygdala to react in a fight or flight manner.
Flight — Reject feedback and run away.
Fight — Reject feedback and act defensively.
Even when you are not afraid of feedback and you have embraced the process, there’s still the problem of not knowing what to do with the feedback. Either because the feedback wasn't good:
It’s nice.
Or your brain didn’t record that it got feedback which often happens when people sandwich a critical thought between two compliments
This was so nice. I thought you could have worked better on the length. but it was a wonderful article
I am currently at a very critical part of my life. The quality of work I do now is the worst it will ever be. I will only get better and one way I can get better is through helpful feedback. In receiving and trying to give that helpful feedback, I have stumbled on a few things. I have learnt that some things work and some things don’t. So here are some points I try to keep in mind when thinking about constructive feedback.
Permission
It seems like the importance of getting permission to give someone feedback is underrated. A lot of times, when people reject feedback, it’s because the feedback was unsolicited. Someone sees you going about your way and thinks they have the expertise to tell you how you should do something. They might actually have the expertise but it feels like they don’t have respect for your work. So getting permission before giving someone feedback is a really really important part of the process. A simple question does the job in most cases.
Hey, I had some thoughts about the article you wrote, would you like me to share them?
If the person says yes, then great, layout the carpet. If not, keep it moving. It also really helps to give people permission to give you feedback, if you want it. I generally tend to ask for feedback when I am making something and by the point, I put it out, I’ve already gotten and implemented a lot of changes. So I might not ask for feedback again. Every now and then though, I will ask and anyone is welcome to share it with me.
Articulating your thoughts
This is probably the hardest part of giving feedback; knowing how to say what you feel. I think the English language does a really bad job of equipping us with the words to express our feelings. There are so many different ways my brain can feel that all fall under the single bracket of “headache” and that really drives me crazy. Trying to give feedback is the same way. How can I articulate my thoughts in words that will actually help the person I am giving feedback to? I came up with a formula that I have edited a few times over the years. It’s three(3) steps to follow when I am struggling.
a. What was the overall quality?
I just generally start with this. If something is good. I say I thought it was good. If it was bad, then that becomes tricky and I have to be a little more sensitive. I’d talk about that in the next section.
b. What makes it good or bad?
Always follow up the first statement with reasons.
This video was great, the picture quality was really crisp, your transitions were smooth and editing was so well done
The same thing goes for if it is bad. It helps to use descriptive words to qualify why something is good or bad.
c. Make statements of meaning
What did you find evocative, interesting, exciting or striking about the piece you are giving feedback on? Speaking personally, I love it when feedback starts with
“That part where you said…”
Being able to pick out a point in someone’s work and refer to it always makes them(the creator)feel seen and that’s great feedback cause now they know whether a particular thing worked or didn’t.
Be Kind
Please don’t forget you are talking to a human being when giving feedback. Don’t be like a Gordon Ramsay.
When I have to tell someone that their stuff is bad, I ask for permission again
Can i be candid with you?
The thing about asking for permission is you are giving the person control of what they hear. Feeling in control helps the feedback process more than you can imagine.
PS: Don’t forget to give reasons for saying something is bad.
Give guidance
This one is for the creator. One of the reasons people give feedback like ‘it’s nice’ is because they don’t know what is expected of them. When asking someone for feedback, it helps to let them know what kind of feedback you are hoping for.
Please take a look at this logo I made. Do you think it’s appropriate for a company about fishes?
Or something like that.
Give guidance for what you’d like to hear.
Ask Questions
This one is for the feedback giver. When someone comes to meet you for feedback and you are not sure what to say, ask questions. Ask questions about what the person would like to hear. It also helps to ask questions about the work
What were you going for? What direction were you trying to take? Who is your audience?
Asking questions really helps you (the feedback giver) with knowing the right things to say.
Restarting is fine
It’s hard but it’s fine. One of the things I dread most is restarting something I already worked really hard on. Some times, the thing you are doing is just not doing anything the right way, or maybe it is doing somethings right but it’s doing way more wrong things. The only way to save it is to restart. Look at restarting as an opportunity to be better, Don’t be afraid to restart and don’t be afraid to tell someone to go back to the drawing board.
Give recommendations
Some times, just bringing certain things to a person’s attention is sufficient enough because then they can use their own creativity to make it better. Recommendations are sometimes tricky because it starts to feel like you are dictating what the work should be but most times they are actually very helpful. They give actionable changes that make the piece better. An example of that is this tweet I saw responding to the video creator I mentioned earlier on.
Voice tone.(monotonous)
Voice Clarity.(your tongue)
Script.(empty, repetitive).
Not accent, are your problem. *I took a course by Peter baker on voice training on udemy. It helped. You can start from there.
*the recommendation
I loved this particular tweet because it was able to articulate the problems with the videos very well and then gave a useful recommendation.
Give your opinions
Feedback is often subjective. Most of the points I have listed above make the feedback process about the thought process of the creator. That’s as objective as you can be. At some point, your feedback will be about what you think. Try to do that last and try to make it clear that it’s your own personal opinions. This tweet to the same video creator was all about opinions and even though the feedback might have been helpful, it was unsolicited opinions on what the person thought would make for better content and that feels slightly disrespectful to many creators
His ‘content’ would be better if he; Talked about the materials used in the finishing of the house, The concept behind the designs, Uniqueness of the choice of colours, etc There’s a lot to talk about than “you can just chill here and watch football”.
The last thing I often try to do is make reference to other pieces of work that could help someone out especially if I am able to think of work that I like and the person might too. For instance, there’s a book on ‘critical response’ by Liz Lieman which is really helpful for giving critical feedback. I read an abridged version of it before writing this. Making reference to work that inspires is always a welcome type of feedback.
Those are the things I try to keep in mind when giving feedback. I don’t always follow all of them and I am not always limited to just these points, but keeping these in mind tends to help me give better feedback.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end. What did you think? I’d love to get some candid feedback on my recommendations. Were they too subjective? Did I miss anything? Leave a comment!
Plug
Korty is a friend and a favourite creator of mine who I genuinely admire. She makes super cool videos that you can find on Youtube, Instagram and sometimes Twitter,
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