A recent post on Liz Strauss’s Successful-Blog got me thinking about giving feedback. She poses the question: “What do you do when someone asks your opinion of their blog, and you think that it’s really bad?” We’ve all had this experience on some topic or other, and it can be an awkward moment. It’s so easy to wound with our words, and yet it can feel so awful when we don’t tell someone the truth.

My most painful memory of this comes from an incident early in my career. I was managing my first organizational change project and was in way over my head. The goal was to get physicians involved with information technology (IT). This was long before IT was cool. IT was considered an annoyance. This was when email was brand new and most people were still afraid of it. Let’s say that physicians were not, um, bought in to the relevance of information technology in the practice of medicine.

One doctor on the project was just past retirement age, and excited about this project. He was given a central role on the physician team, and then ignored. It became clear to me he was being given something to do while being excluded from the real action. It was clear to him, too. And, I could see something he couldn’t: That he was not respected by his peers, which made him less than ideal for a key role on the project. We spend a fair amount of time together (as I was being excluded too, we were often thrown together), and one day, he turned to me, his face as open as a child’s and said: “Will you please tell me what’s going on? I know I’m being given busywork. If I’m not the right person for this project, I wish someone would tell me. Will you tell me?”

I’d like to say that my heart melted with compassion and I found the courage to say all I’ve written above in a clear, loving way.

I would so like to say that.

Instead, I froze. Deer-in-the-headlights froze. Eventually, I stammered, “I don’t know,” and looked at the floor. He looked even more miserable. The moment passed and we moved on to an increasingly awkward relationship. Eventually, he left the project.

It’s been 15 years, and I’ve never forgotten his face or how I failed to give him what he asked me for: The kindness of telling him the truth. Up until that moment, I had these two things be mutually exclusive, and I lurched between honesty and kindness. Ever since that moment, I think they are entwined. Kindness isn’t served by lying, and being honest need not be cruel.

I’ve spent the intervening years – all 15 of them – learning how to bring both truthfulness and kindness to giving feedback. I’ve found that this is facilitated by making sure the feedback is useful to the other person. Useful, honest and kind is the braid that makes feedback strong, worth both giving and receiving.

So, I was ready for Liz’s question. Here’s what I wrote in response:

In the scenario you painted, Liz, they asked for my feedback. That means I’d give it to them, but like this:

1. Tell me what you’re wanting to accomplish with your blog – purpose, tone, audience, future plans.

2. In light of that, here’s what’s working and you should continue/build on.

3. And, in light of #1, here’s what needs changing because it isn’t serving your purpose.

4. Here are some blogs to look at that have a similar purpose for some models of what works.

It’s them asking for feedback that gives me permission, and it’s #1 that gives me my boundaries and helps me keep my unwanted advice in check – not to mention my judgements. Having them tell me their goal sets up the boundaries ahead of time and keeps me truthful, constructive *and* kind.

And, if anybody sees that doctor, would you let him know I’m finally ready for him?

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 4:11 pm and is filed under compassion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.