A Better Approach To Critical Feedback
One of the things that I love most about work is writing: I enjoy writing emails, Slack messages, decks, documents, responses, and feedback.
If you’ve ever gotten an email or a document from me that had half-finished sentences in it, I want you to know that it was more likely to come from a place of unbridled excitement to get words on the page and jump to the next thought than it is from a lack of caring.
And being interested in writing means that I’ve never felt that I’m great at it, and have been on a constant quest to get better. This is both because I personally want to produce interesting writing, but also because I think it’s professionally valuable.
That quest has led me to down pathways to learn more about some of my favourite authors, and as part of that I’ve found myself coming back again and again to Ursula K. Le Guin. In particular, it’s gotten me to read about her meta-writing: her books and essays about writing itself.
One of those books is “Steering The Craft: A 21st Century Guide To Sailing The Sea Of Story.” It’s a series of instructions and exercises for conducting your own writing workshop, either solo or with a group, and either in-person or online.
Within her book there are a series of guidelines for conducting a successful critique that I think are as useful to the work that I do as they are for a writing workshop, and I thought I’d share them.
For those critiquing writing she offers these guidelines (lightly paraphrased by me, and I think equally applicable to feedback or reviews of almost any creative or strategic work):
The piece to be critiqued is sent out in advance with enough time for the group to review it.
Nitpicks, spelling, and grammar corrections shouldn’t be part of the formal critique process. The place for these is as notes on the original document.
Every critique should be brief.
Every critique should be free of interruption from anyone else, including the author.
Critiques should be impersonal, referencing “the narrator” vs “you” as the creator. In the case of creative or strategy work, it might mean referencing “the work” or “the slide” vs “you’ve done this.”
Don’t repeat the critiques of others: simply say you agree if so, and let the session move on.
Don’t be afraid to say what you don’t understand or ask what might seem to be stupid questions.
Don’t say what the work reminds you of (I’m particularly guilty of doing this when seeing creative work).
Guidelines For Those Being Critiqued (similarly
Stay silent until all the critiques have been heard. This also means that they shouldn’t offer “any preliminary explanations or excuses for their work." I think that this is one of the most interesting ones. How would your next internal review or creative presentation go if the work just stood for itself?
Take notes while you’re being critiqued. “Even if the comments seem stupid.”
When all the critiques are in, keep your comments brief and don’t get defensive. This is the best time to ask questions.
The whole thing has got me thinking a bit differently about how to give feedback in internal and formal reviews, and how to work with other people on giving that feedback. Maybe it will even help my own writing a little bit.