ALL THINGS FEEDBACK.

I have a slight obsession with feedback, the first title below is a good indication of that.

So I had written about it many times in my newsletter, and I decided to combine them into one essay. I will continue to update this page. Unless stated, the essays were published in July 2023. Typically, I will first publish my latest thought on the topic in my newsletter and later update this day. To update, without having to come back to this page, please follow my newsletter.

Contents

One Of The Things I Loved Most Was Getting Punched In The Face

I used to love doing Muay Thai, Thai kickboxing, but an old reoccurring jaw injury means I can’t do it anymore. I love being pushed to my limits every day, both mentally and physically. I loved training in a group where everyone was pushing themselves and each other. But one of the things I loved most was getting punched in the face.

There aren’t many times in life when you get instant, useful feedback for errors. Muay Thai provides exactly that. Drop your guard, you get punched in the face. Get sloppy with an attack, and the other person will counter and might kick you in the head. Feel sorry for yourself and want a break, the opponent doesn’t care and will punch you in the face.

Unsurprisingly, you stop making stupid mistakes quickly.

Classes were painful, but I knew the feedback my opponent gave me was for my own good. And I was expected to give the same painful feedback to my opponent. Everyone is better off.

Imagine how quickly you’d learn everything if you got continuous and immediate feedback (punishment) for mistakes you make.

But dosage is crucial.

My coach used to say, “Wake up, don’t shake them” – hit the punchee (not sure what the right term here was – the assaulted, the idiot who doesn’t protect himself, punching bag with legs) hard enough to get their attention but not so hard you wobble them.

Feedback was painful and never lasted more than a few seconds. Physically anyway. The receiver’s ego could be in pain for a lot longer.

I know my desire to get feedback isn’t normal. I once sent a survey to my family and friends that asked them 4 questions: what are my strengths? What triggers my strength? What are my weaknesses? What triggers my weakness? I got these questions from a guest on the Tim Ferriss podcast, but I can’t remember who. Importantly, the answers were anonymous.

I did what every normal person would do when they get the results: ignore the strengths and go straight to the weaknesses. And try to work out which backstabbing arsehole wrote it.

For those interested, my weaknesses were all related to my communication skills. Anyone who has spent a small amount of time with me would be able to tell you that. But the feedback was a good confirmation of what I needed to work on and allowed me to know exactly where I needed to focus. I have got better since then, but I still need to improve.

Improvements would be quicker if we got more and better feedback. We should be on the hunt for it, no matter how painful.

So I have a request, if you ever see an improvement I can make, online or in person, please throw me a jab and let me know.

You probably should have seen that request coming if you read the passage above properly.

Giving Feedback
Though we should actively go looking for feedback, we need to be more careful when we give it out especially if it involves physical feedback. If you see a small child in the park throwing a ball, sure, punching him in the face every time he misses throws would help him learn quicker but it may not be the best way to do it.

If you do, you’ll probably also get some feedback on your behaviour in the form of prison time. But I’m guessing you’ll learn quickly as well.

The Right Type Of Support

When I started writing my newsletter, getting support was crucial for me not quitting and it came in the form of likes and comments.

There was one man who did for me better than anyone else. But he did it so well, I didn’t even know he was doing it. Rather than being a cheerleader and just telling me “You are amazing”, which I wouldn’t have liked as much, he’d leave thoughtful comments. Clearly showing he read my writing, some of which was awful, especially at the start. My first few were so bad, I wouldn’t have even read them.

When a master/expert operates, often the other people don’t know it’s even happening. I only realised how much Rick (who writes a brilliant newsletter) had been supporting me a few weeks ago. I wrote an essay about legacy and he left a comment about his mission to help other writers.

It was only then I realised he had been leaving comments on my essay since the beginning. I’ve written over 30 editions and he has probably commented on 27 of them.

And it wasn’t like I was the only person he did this for. I continuously saw him commenting on others’ writing. I suspect he has probably commented on more than two dozen writers, but I could be underestimating it.

And sometimes, his comments are more thought-provoking than my writing.

It’s also worth noting, the first time I can remember communicating directly, outside of the comment sections on my newsletter or his brilliant newsletter 4 months into me publishing my newsletter.

Looking at how you give support and the quality is just as important. If Rick had just said, “You are brilliant”, I don’t think it would have had the beneficial effect it did on me.

Are You Giving Too Many Compliments Relative To Constructive Criticism? (The Sandwich Feedback Is Stupid)

In the UK, most people are told to sandwich criticism between two compliments to soften the blow – a 2:1 ratio of compliments to criticism. But I think this is stupid. It works with children but most adults just ignore the compliments – we are wired to focus on the bad. Or worse, the compliments are too big, blurring the feedback so the person thinks it is just a minor problem.

Personally, I’d prefer the ratio to be flipped to 1:2 complement to criticism.

This is partly because I don’t like being complimented (which I will address in my next newsletter). But more importantly, feedback is where growth happens. I can learn from it and improve.

I like to ratio 2:1 as the occasional feedback means you still get some motivation.

In Muay Thai, I need to get punched in the face in training, which is painful, but I also need to have some success. This is usually blocking someone else’s punch, sometimes accompanied by a smile from the other person. Or even better, a frustrated face because they can’t get through my guard.

The latter isn’t common but when it does happen, it is brilliant. It’s usually followed with a thought of “Haha, dickhead, you can’t hit me” and then followed with a punch or a kick that landed on me because I was too focused on my genuine skills to see the attack coming.

Criticising Online Work

“Public praise and criticise in private” and “attack the idea, not the person” are both brilliant pieces of advice.

So a few months ago, I decided to apply this and messaged Rik (author of the newsletter – The Conversation Starter) about an improvement in his writing I saw. I specifically selected Rik because of the conversations we had so I knew he could take criticism. But I was still hesitant.

I messaged him saying I liked his writing but his opening hooks weren’t great so I gave him some suggestions I got from another writing course I did. He agreed with my feedback and thanked me. And even better, in the next few editions, I could see he was applying it and it was improving his writing.

An example taken from one of his newsletters:
“I have a confession to make. I’ve never really understood the word empathy. And I really should know what it means since I’m a practising coach.”

And you’re probably thinking I want to read that now so here’s the link. But I’d appreciate it if you came back after.

The reason I’ve learnt to be hesitant about giving feedback is because of a few situations where the person has reacted badly, even when they were asking for feedback. In the case of Rik, I was giving it without a request from him.

During the writing course I did last year, we would have “feedback gyms”. This was where you came to get feedback on your work. You’d think this would be a place where you can openly give feedback. And also be wrong like I was. There were 3 times when I gave feedback but the other person reacted badly.

Before giving feedback, I’d ask what type they were after as well as how nitty-gritty they wanted the feedback. They would always say go full wack. But as soon as I started giving them feedback, they’d have an annoyed look on their face. And the final draft never included the suggestions I made.

Lesson learnt: be careful when giving feedback. People say they want it but what they sometimes mean is they want positive feedback only.

Why I Have Changed My Opinion About Positive Feedback. (Added 01/02/25)

It was now my turn to try and not fail in front of everyone.

My palms were getting clammy and my heart rate was increasing. I had only had 20 minutes of sales training but Aaron wanted to get a baseline for me and asked to do a trial sales call. I agreed. Part of me wanted to just jump in – it’s the only way to improve. But a bigger part of me wanted to hang up the Zoom call – I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of the three other people on the call.

“Good morning. Can I speak to Aaron please?” I said in a crackling voice.

My heart rate continued to increase. After pleasantries, I went into the pitch. I knew I was talking too fast but couldn’t slow myself down even when I tried. And I could hear my own voice vibrating from nervousness – something I didn’t think was fixable.
I hoped my nerves would calm down after the first few minutes of the call.

But they didn’t.

Worse, my knowledge of the product was minimal so when Aaron asked me for details about the investment opportunity, I umm-ed and err-ed a lot, making me even more nervous.

The torture went on for 10 minutes as I dragged my pathetic attempt over the line. But felt like it went on for 10 hours.

After the practice call, Obi was the first to give me feedback. He said, what I already knew, “You sounded very nervous. But that will get better over time.”

But Aaron’s feedback surprised me.

He agreed with Obi’s feedback, but he also said, “You have a really good voice. It’s calming and reassuring. It’s not monotone and easy to listen to. I could make you a killer at sales if you listen to my advice”.

Me, easy to listen to? And not monotone?

I’ve been trying to improve my communication skills for the last six months. And as part of this process, for the last month, I’ve been doing a communication course called Ultraspeaking. During the daily Zoom calls, we were given exercises to do in our breakout rooms and we would get feedback from other people after each attempt. I’ve regularly got feedback similar to Aaron’s and I always brushed it off as I thought they were being nice.

But Aaron doesn’t know them.

With my feedback done, Aaron continued with the remaining Zoom call. But I stopped listening at this point.
Instead, I sat on my chair and started questioning if my communication skills weren’t as bad as I thought they were. Over the last six months, I thought I had improved but only a tiny bit. Maybe I had improved much more than I thought. I know I’m no master at it but I don’t need to be. I just need it to be good enough that my skill level doesn’t hold me back – something that it has done in the past. And maybe I was closer to where I needed to be than I thought, I just didn’t know it.

I recently heard (but I can’t remember who said it) that people need positive feedback because we don’t know what we are good at.
I’ve always been against giving lots of positive feedback. It’s often just given to make the receiving person not feel bad. I’ve always thought feedback should focus on what needs to be improved. And positive feedback was often a waste of time. But my experience got me to rethink this.

I had to wait 20 minutes for the call to end before I could finally close my laptop.

I went into the meeting hoping to learn: learn to become a better salesperson. Instead, I learnt how to give better feedback and be a better coach/teacher (in the most general sense possible).

Positive feedback is an extremely useful tool if it is given to make the other person more aware of their strengths instead of doing it to avoid making them feel bad.

How To Get Feedback On Your Feedback

Everyone knows they need feedback to improve but very few people ever get feedback on their feedback.

I’ve found there are two ways to do this:

Next time you give feedback to someone, wait a few days (so they have time to process it but also their initial emotion – often anger or sadness – can fade) and then ask them how useful the feedback was. Questions can/should include:

Did the feedback help them get where they wanted to be? How applicable was the feedback?
Was it too negative? (Was the compliment-to-criticism ratio correct?).
What didn’t I include?
Was the tone and wording of my feedback good?
What could I have done better?

The other way to get feedback on your feedback is to see if it elicited the response you wanted. This can easily be done by noting down the feedback you gave and then waiting a while and seeing if it got the results you expected. You can then also can then ask yourself the question above.

I often do this with my nieces and nephews. Each one of them is different so they respond differently to different types and executions of feedback. One of my nieces likes feedback so long as I sit with her and help/watch her attempt it again. For one of my nephews, I can just leave him with a question such as “Can you find a better way to do X?”. He is a problem solver and will just get on with it without me needing to be around him. Another one hates getting negative feedback from his cousins. Another one couldn’t care less.

And as they get older, how they respond to feedback also changes so keeping a record of my feedback helps improve how I give feedback and more importantly, how effective my feedback is on them.

Not Accepting Praise Is Selfish

We are taught it’s selfish not to give. But never told it’s also selfish not to receive. I’ve struggled with the receiving part of that sentence, especially when it comes to compliments. And many other people are similar.

This is probably due to us being told to always be modest when we are young.

There is a big difference between singing our own praise or getting other people to sing our praise compared to people just complimenting us when it’s been earned. But often this difference isn’t made clear enough when we are young and it stays with us. And worse, we are never taught how to accept praise.

We are told to be generous by giving. But being generous requires the other person to be able to receive.

So not letting someone compliment us is just as selfish as not giving to others.

Be Less Selfish And Learning To Accept Praise

I don’t particularly like being praised. I never know what to do with it. Tell me I’m wrong. I know what to do – fix it.

But praise is weird. I usually push it aside or redirect the person’s attention to what I’m focusing on now. Sometimes I awkwardly say “thank you” and hope someone says something to move the conversation on. None of these are great options.

Praise builds confidence. Constantly pushing it away means people are less likely to give it to you next time. Also, it is not nice for the other person who is just trying to be nice. They have spent time/energy to acknowledge your skill and they want you to know they appreciate it.

Accepting praise can be uncomfortable for me as it is for so many others. So a common solution is to play it down and reply with “Anyone can do it”. But it undermines the hard work I’ve put in. And can have unexpected negative effects.

Imagine you’re at work and you respond with “Anyone can do it” whenever your manager praises you. They might start to believe you so when you negotiate for a pay rise or a promotion, they’ll think “Anyone can do a good job like them”. This is made worse if you have a colleague who is just as good as you but accepts praise. Your colleague is more likely to get the promotion.

Now if I ever say that “Anyone can do it”, I immediately follow it up with “if they put in the hard work for X months/years”. This allows me not to come across as stuck up and kind of accept the praise but also demonstrates it took hard work which theoretically anyone can do but most will never do.

I know this is suboptimal but it’s better than not accepting the praise at all.