Bad feedback dwells on the past.
"You messed this up."
"This was wrong."
"Why did you do it that way?"
All true, maybe.
All useless.
The past is done.
Nobody can go back and fix it.
So all that kind of feedback does
is make someone feel bad
about something they can't change.
Good feedback points forward.
Not "you got this wrong,"
but "next time, try this."
Not "this was unclear,"
but "here's how to make the next one clearer."
Same information.
Completely different effect.
One leaves someone
defending the past.
The other hands them
a better future.
When you give feedback,
ask yourself one thing:
is this helping them
do the next one better,
or just cataloguing
what went wrong in the last one?
If there's nothing they can do
differently going forward,
you're not giving feedback.
You're just assigning blame.
Point at the future.
That's the only part
anyone can still change.
– Asael Shinder
