Week 24, 2022—Issue #208
Reading Notes VIII — Sandberg, Hastings, and Grant on Feedback
Each week: three ideas to help you build better organizations. This week: three quotes from people who’ve built reputations on, amongst other things, good feedback.
1. Sandberg on Opinions
“Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experience which allows us to know what impression we make on others.”
Sheryl Sandberg was until recently COO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook et cetera.
1. Hastings on Intent
“Feedback must be given with positive intent. Giving feedback in order to get frustration off your chest…or furthering your political agenda is not tolerated.”
Reed Hastings is the founder and CEO of Netflix — a company famous for its culture of radical candor.
3. Grant on Purpose
“The point of giving feedback is not to make people feel good today. It’s to help them do better tomorrow. Tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.”
Adam Grant is an Organizational Psychologist, podcast host, and author of Think Again and other books.
Feedback is part art, part science. It takes practice, but if you keep a few key things firmly in mind, you’ll increase your chances of getting it right:
- Always give feedback with positive intent and don’t shy away from the hard truths, just remember that you are offering subjective opinions rather than objective truth. Make that clear.
- When receiving feedback, keep in mind that feedback is perception and that perception is reality. You may not agree with it, but if it’s offered with positive intent you’ll do well to listen. You’ll be better for it.
That’s all for this week.
Until next time: Make it matter.
/Andreas
How can we build better organizations? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer for the past 10 years. Each week, I share some of what I’ve learned in a weekly newsletter called WorkMatters. Subscription is free. Back-issues are published to Medium after three months.
