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About Soliciting Feedback: A Quick Note from Nash

The topic of feedback has come up “out of public eye” between myself and several others quite a bit over the past couple months for whatever reason, and I was asked to do a detailed post on this topic at some point (one with strategies, examples, advisement based on my personal experiences, etc.), so I have some things collected in draft form for the future, but wanted to take a moment to throw something out there - certainly, take it or leave it.

When we openly seek input - for a personal matter, or on something we’ve created - and people give it, sometimes that input is going to arrive with inelegant phrasing, more so when it’s via written response, and double time if in a limited space (i.e., an Ask).

There could be a maturity gap which adds to disjointed communication. There could be a language barrier that adds to inappropriate wording. There could be an educational chasm that adds to lack of specificity. There could be an emotional component that adds to lack of clarity.

To kick back with defensiveness and our own poor responses to feedback that isn’t structured in the top-tier manner we’d like is a guaranteed way to put ourselves into an echo chamber where our faults and missteps are never revealed, and we create a space that screams “Only praise is allowed! The rest of y’all can kiss my ass!”

To be sure, some input will land on the “criticism” side of things vs. the “critique” side of things, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing of value there. If we aren’t willing to take the sour with the sweet? We should stop including the population at large and only get input from our nearest and dearest.

Because when we draw people in with the invitation, tell them we want to include them in the conversation, the catch is we can’t control the manner in which the opinions and feelings people have are expressed; what we can control are our responses.

Point is: We asked for it. We got it.