Alina Tugend's April 5 New York Times "Shortcuts" feature focused on the art of feedback.
And it is most definitely an art rather than a science: there is no formula, no method that will give the best result in all cases but, rather, a ...
Alina Tugend's April 5 New York Times "Shortcuts" feature focused on the art of feedback.
And it is most definitely an art rather than a science: there is no formula, no method that will give the best result in all cases but, rather, a spectrum of possibilties which needs to be carefully calibrated for maximum benefit.
Alas, my once carefully considered, individually calibrated and personalized, delicate methods degenerated and degraded over 15 years in the academic anesthesia O.R. arena to the point where, toward the end, residents regularly went crying to our chairman complaining about how mean I was.
Boo hoo.
I'm the only anesthesiologist I know who's been practicing for 36 years and has never, ever, been sued.
An accident?
I don't think so.
So whether or not you like my methods when it comes to instruction doesn't mean jack to me: if you are a patient of mine, you will get the safest anesthetic it is possible to get.
That's my bottom line.
Whiners and whingers: boo hoo hoo, I feel so bad for you.
Not.
Below, excerpts from the Times piece.
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Most of us think we know how to give feedback. Positive comments are better — and more useful — than negative ones. And if you do have to point out something wrong, start with a compliment, move on to the problem, then end on a high note.
It turns out that it's not that simple. Those who have studied the issue have found that negative feedback isn't always bad and positive feedback isn’t always good. Too often, they say, we forget the purpose of feedback — it's not to make people feel better, it's to help them do better.
A recent research paper, "Tell Me What I did Wrong: Experts Seek and Respond to Negative Feedback," in The Journal of Consumer Research, says that when people are experts on a subject, or consider themselves experts, they’re more eager to hear negative feedback, while novices are more likely to seek positive responses.
One experiment surveyed students in beginning-level French classes and advanced-level French literature classes. Participants completed a questionnaire about choosing an instructor. They were asked if they would prefer an instructor who emphasized what students were doing well in class and talked about their strengths, such as when they pronounced new words well, or an instructor who focused mostly on what mistakes they made and how to fix those mistakes.
Those who had just started learning the language wanted the positive feedback, while those who had been taking the French classes longer were more interested in hearing about what they did wrong and how to correct it.
Why is that? One reason is that as people gain expertise, feedback serves a different purpose. When people are just beginning a venture, they may not have much confidence, and they need encouragement. But experts' commitment "is more secure than novices and their focus is on their progress," the paper’s authors said. Even labeling feedback as either negative or positive isn't helpful, said Tim Harford, author of "Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure." He noted that his karate teacher told him specific things to do, like bending his toes backward or rotating his hips. "It’s not useful to say, 'That's really good or that's really bad,'" Mr. Harford said. "We need to separate the emotional side from the technical points."
That, of course, is much easier said than done, which is why most of us have such trouble giving or getting critiques.
We don't want to be the bad guy.
Research bears that out. In a class she teaches, Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science and marketing at the University of Chicago and co-author of the paper "Tell Me What I Did Wrong," conducts a simulation where half the class gives one-on-one feedback to the other half. Although the feedback givers were supposed to indicate that performance was unsatisfactory, that improvement was needed and to offer ways to do better, in surveys filled out later, the half
