Give Feedback You Would Want to Receive

When it is your turn to give feedback, there is a simple test that keeps you honest.

Would you want to receive it the way you are about to give it?

Not the content.
The delivery.

Because a lot of feedback is technically true and still lands like a slap.

You point at the flaw, you are accurate, and you leave the person feeling smaller instead of clearer.

That is not helping.
That is just being right at someone.

So before you give it, put yourself on the other side of the table.

If someone said this to you, in this tone, at this moment, in front of these people, how would you feel?

Would you feel motivated to fix it, or would you just feel exposed?

That one question changes almost everything about how you deliver.

It moves you to say it privately instead of in the group chat.
It moves you to lead with what you are trying to help them achieve, not just what they got wrong.
It moves you to be specific about the behavior instead of vague about the person.

There is a real difference between this function is hard to follow and you are not a careful coder.

One gives them something to work with.
The other gives them a wound.

Aim for the first, always.

And remember, the goal of feedback is not to prove you noticed the problem.

The goal is for the person to walk away able to do better and still wanting to.

If your feedback makes them defensive or ashamed, it does not matter how correct it was.

It did not work.

So give the version you would want.

Honest, specific, private when it needs to be, and always on their side.

That is the feedback people actually grow from.

– Asael Shinder