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In this episode, we navigate the "place of great danger" that is soliciting feedback, teaching you how to distinguish between seeking approval and seeking actionable insight.
High-Value Quotables
[01:21] "Are you looking for feedback or approval? Those things are different."
[02:44] "What you're really looking for is nuanced feedback... by asking questions that are a little bit more engaging."
[04:01] "Every person that's giving you feedback... is acting to as a mirror on that process."
[05:42] "Be prepared that they will not be able to separate their opinion from their observation... be careful with other people's feedback, because if you take that and use it as a way to drive your own behavior, you may find that you are operating sort of at the whim of a thousand different perspectives."
The Core Concept: Nuanced Questioning
Soliciting feedback is a risky step in development because we are often sensitive and prone to seeking simple approval. To get truly actionable insight, you must change the nature of your questions from binary ("Did you like it?") to specific and process-related ("What flavors did you taste?").
Key Takeaways:
- Approval vs. Feedback: Approval is a binary like/dislike; feedback is a nuanced understanding of choices made in context.
- The "Mirror" Effect: Respondents are mirrors reflecting your process back to you, but their reflection is always flavored by their own subjective preferences.
- Specific Inquiries: Ask what someone would have done differently or what was most attractive about an experience to get actionable data.
- The Feedback Nightmare: If you use subjective feedback as your sole behavioral driver, you risk going adrift by following a "thousand different perspectives".
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- Tim Dedman
- Jorge
Creators and Guests
What is A Mason's Work?
In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.
[00:00] In the episodes we've done so far this week, we've talked a lot about pushing boundaries,
[00:06] finding opportunities to grow and develop, and creating stuff.
[00:11] And when we look at the kind of one of the next steps here, and we need to be really
[00:18] mindful and careful about the next steps we take, one of the next steps that's going to
[00:23] happen most likely is you're going to pursue some level of feedback.
[00:26] You're going to look to friends, colleagues, family members for feedback on the things
[00:36] you make or the risks you've taken or the experiences you've had.
[00:41] And this is a place of great danger, not because you can't get valuable insights from other
[00:51] people, but as a practitioner, as somebody who's trying to grow and develop themselves,
[00:58] it is very likely that you will be sensitive in the feedback process to a couple of different
[01:05] things.
[01:06] So I want to go through this.
[01:08] We'll kind of go through it piece by piece so that you understand kind of what you're doing
[01:14] when you're soliciting feedback.
[01:16] First things first, let's be quite clear.
[01:21] Are you looking for feedback or approval?
[01:26] Those things are different.
[01:28] When you look for feedback, you're looking for some level of insight about the outcome,
[01:33] some level of understanding that the protocol that you followed or the process that you executed
[01:41] or the choices that you made along the way created an outcome that was both favorable and that
[01:49] those choices made sense in context.
[01:52] What you're not looking for is, did you like the brownies?
[01:57] Like to understand this even further,
[02:00] the way we ask for feedback is a good indicator of what we're actually looking for.
[02:10] This is kind of tough because we socially in the United States, if you're listening to the
[02:16] United States and probably in other English speaking cultures, it is very likely that the
[02:22] way we ask questions is, did you like this?
[02:24] Or what do you think of that?
[02:26] Or how did it go?
[02:28] All of those lead to largely positive and negative answers.
[02:33] It was awful.
[02:34] It was great.
[02:35] This tasted wonderful.
[02:36] It was horrible.
[02:39] Though that kind of feedback is not useful for the most part.
[02:44] What you're really looking for is nuanced feedback.
[02:48] And so the way you get to more nuanced feedback, to more useful feedback for you as a practitioner,
[02:52] as somebody who's looking to grow and develop is, um, by asking questions that, um, that are a little
[03:01] bit more engaging.
[03:03] So we'll use cooking, cooking again, as an example.
[03:07] Um, rather than, did you like it?
[03:09] You might ask, what flavors did you taste?
[03:12] No, that changes everything about the nature of that response.
[03:19] Um, or, uh, what was your favorite part about the texture or what was your least favorite
[03:26] thing, uh, about the color?
[03:29] Right.
[03:30] When you ask these specific questions in a specific way, you get answers that potentially
[03:36] are actionable.
[03:36] Now I say potentially because not all of these things are, uh, guaranteed to be things you
[03:43] can walk away with.
[03:43] But if you change the nature of the questions you ask in general, um, you get, uh, much,
[03:50] much more effective, uh, responses from the mirrors that you ask these questions to these,
[03:56] every person that's giving you feedback, every person who's getting involved in giving you an
[04:01] answer is acting to as a mirror on that process.
[04:06] Uh, so, so that's sort of caveat one.
[04:08] If you don't ask good questions, you're not going to get to a feedback and that's really,
[04:12] really important.
[04:13] So what does a good question look like?
[04:15] Uh, it's usually process related.
[04:16] How, um, what you're, you're never really asking, um, overall, like, what did you think
[04:22] questions you're asking, uh, questions about, uh, the experience you're asking questions
[04:27] about, um, uh, the things that people would notice about the craftsmanship or, or what have
[04:35] you.
[04:35] Um, so I, you know, I just told you about my, my day long trip in the mountains.
[04:40] Uh, what, what would you like to do, uh, in the future?
[04:44] If this was your trip, what would you have done differently?
[04:46] Or if this is, uh, something that we try and go do together one day, uh, what about this
[04:52] trip was most attractive to you?
[04:53] Again, all of these little feedback sort of mechanisms provide tons more useful insight.
[04:58] Um, then what did you think?
[05:00] Or did you like it?
[05:03] So the other thing to remember in the feedback loop here is that a good amount of the feedback
[05:11] in almost every situation will very likely be minimally, uh, flavored by the person providing
[05:20] the feedback.
[05:20] Oftentimes the feedback provided is entirely about the person providing the feedback.
[05:26] So if you ask your spouse about, you know, did you like the food, they're only going
[05:31] to be asking from a place of their preferences, not a place of sort of objective value, because
[05:37] again, we can only resonate from the subjective experiences we have.
[05:42] So what this means is when you ask for people's perspectives or opinions, be prepared that they
[05:48] will not be able to separate their opinion from their observation or from the answer to the
[05:53] question.
[05:54] And because of that, you have to be careful with other people's feedback, because if you
[05:59] take that and use it as a way to drive your own behavior, um, you may find that you are,
[06:04] uh, operating sort of at the whim of a thousand different perspectives.
[06:10] Uh, and that creates a nightmare scenario where the feedback you're soliciting doesn't really
[06:15] give you value.
[06:16] It just actually sends you further adrift.
[06:18] So, uh, we'll get more into feedback in other episodes.
[06:21] It's a very important, uh, conversational piece and very difficult to get right.
[06:26] So there's tons of nuance to it.
[06:28] And so we'll explore that in further episodes.
[06:30] Thank you.