Feedback: Better soon and soft, not late and large.
Reading time: 4 mins
Summary: Feedback back is normally better soon (high frequency) and soft (positive sum) than late (infrequent) and large (someone needs to do a big change in the short term).
“The only sustainable barrier to entry is the pace of innovation.” Elon Musk
Yes, how good you or the company you work at is matters. But likely what matters more is how fast you, and / or the company you are working at, is levelling up.
One of the core strategies to levelling up is feedback from others.
I've found a good strategy feedback is ‘soon and soft’.
Jingle: Ideally feedback helps, not hurts. For feedback to help, I recommend soon and soft, not late and large.
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Details
Soon and soft vs Late and large - A visualisation.
Let’s say metaphorically you are flying from Perth to Sydney. You are off track and you want to give feedback to help someone get ‘on track’ AKA level up.
Approach 1: Soon & soft = Many small direction updates.
Approach 2: Late & Large = One large ‘must do it now’ direction change else we have problems.
If you do ‘late and large’ it can often come as a big surprise to the person, and have a lower chance of working out. The chance of getting to the destination you want is normally higher with ‘soon and soft’ than ‘late and large’.
While a somewhat extreme analogy, I think it is useful.
If you catch cancer early you are normally fine => Soon and soft.
If you ignore cancer until it is the size of an apple then you often have a 50% chance of getting through it => Late and large.
Done well I believe ‘soon and soft’ (or frequent and positive sum) is much better than ‘late and large’ (or even late and ultimatum)!
Improving = 1. Increasing strengths + 2. Decreasing weaknesses
“The good learn from everything and everyone, the average from themselves and the stupid already know everything.” Socrates.
I think you want as much positive sum feedback as possible. Yes you can learn from books, you can learn from yourself, you can learn from observing others for what to do and what not to do, but also others can help you learn!
I think you want to get great at giving feedback. I think you want to be great at receiving feedback.
One key strategy for feedback for yourself and others I’ve found is ‘soon and soft, not late and large’.
A couple of other key strategies:
Try to stay in understanding mode, not defence mode. Try to help others stay in understanding mode, not defence mode. Awareness of the different modes is very important.
For anything that isn’t a ‘fact’ try to use soft (non absolute) language. IMO good messaging tries to provoke thought, not tell people how it is.
E.G. Good: I think we might want to consider trying a new approach.
E.G. Bad: This is a better way to do ‘x’.
A thought on how to do do ‘soon and soft’ well: Radical candor vs Ruinous Empathy
If you are in a company you are almost always on the same team. If you do better, then we do better. If they do better, then we do better. The best things are selfless and selfish. If you are on the same team, helping another is helping yourself, and visa versa.
Avoiding confrontation done badly = ruinous empathy.
Helping yourself and others try to upgrade done well = radical candour.
A key story from the radial candour book: someone is not performing well and they don't tell the person about the under performance until the person is let go.
Feedback framework:
Soon and soft = Good
Late and large = Bad
Never then nixed = Awful
If you only take away one thing.
Most people don't proactively mean to annoy others, they don't go to work and think ‘I'm going to annoy this person today’. I feel that if something frustrating you, and you haven't let the other person know then you don't have a right to be frustrated.
Giving feedback can seem hard and daunting, but soft and soon is normally a lot easier then late and large.
No feedback = Recipe for disaster.