An essay on feedback

It’s an uncomfortable thing to have people point out flaws in your work.  If that’s all they do, and they never provide positive feedback, then it’s understandable if you feel attacked or overly criticized.  Whenever possible, managers should attempt to balance negative feedback with positive, to help mitigate unhappy reactions or resentment in their employees.

That said, there are certain roles where the job is precisely to beat up the product or service, to find its weak spots, and to suggest improvements.

I remember testing financial software many years ago, and the experiences I had reporting issues back to the software designers and developers.  As long as I “colored within the lines,” as long as I only did what the user would be expected to do (or presumably should do), and the feedback was mostly positive, it was welcomed.  

I remember one time, however, when I accidentally clicked on a non-active part of the screen (outside of a data entry box), and the screen froze.

I reported this back to the developer, and the irritated response was, “Well, you shouldn’t click there.”

A better response would have been something along the lines of, “Oh, wow!  Thanks for finding that!  I’ll fix that right away.”

If I had not stumbled upon that flaw, a customer may have.  If a customer is in the middle of a stock trade, and their screen freezes (especially if it’s due to an error in software design), you can be assured that the customer will be furious.  They may bad-mouth the company, or perhaps decide to no longer be your customer.

Don’t be afraid to give negative feedback, but do so in a professional, respectful manner.  And don’t be afraid to get negative feedback, if it’s truly constructive criticism.  Be open to ideas from others.  Be grateful if an error is caught internally before it gets to a customer.  It just might save your job.