beginning and ending the feedback with encouraging words,
So a version of this is also known as a “shit sandwich”, and it’s not clear to me that it is an effective pattern. In particular, it seems plausible that it only works a limited number of times before people start to notice and develop an aversion to it. I personally find it fairly irritating/annoying.
It’s also not clear to me what flavor of encouragement is congruent with a situation in which e.g., getting EA jobs is particularly hard (though perhaps less so for research positions since Rethink Priorities is expanding!)
That said, you are just most likely just correct. I’d still be interested in getting the impression of someone with more research management experience, though.
I don’t have research management experience in particular, but I have a lot of knowledge work (in particular software engineering) management experience.
IMO, giving insufficient positive feedback is a common, and damaging, blind spot for managers, especially those (like you and me) who expect their reports to derive most of their motivation from being intrinsically excited about their end goal. If unaddressed, it can easily lead to your reports feeling demotivated and like their work is pointless/terrible even when it’s mostly good.
People use feedback not just to determine what to improve at, but also as an overall assessment of whether they’re doing a good job. If you only give negative feedback, you’re effectively biasing this process towards people inferring that they’re doing a bad job. You can try to fight it by explicitly saying “you’re doing a good job” or something, but in my experience this doesn’t really land on an emotional level.
Positive feedback in the form “you are good at X, do more of it” can also be an extremely useful type of feedback! Helping people lean into their strengths more often yields as much or more improvement as helping them shore up their weaknesses.
I’m not particularly good at this myself, but every time I’ve improved at it I’ve had multiple reports say things to the effect of “hey, I noticed you improved at this and it’s awesome and very helpful.”
That said, I agree with you that shit sandwiches are silly and make it obvious that the positive feedback isn’t organic, so they usually backfire. The correct way to give positive feedback is to resist your default to be negatively biased by calling out specific things that are good when you see them.
This might be a cultural thing but in the UK/US/Canada, a purely negative note from a superior/mentor/advisor (or even friendly peer) feels really really bad.
I really strongly suggest if you are a leader or mentor, to always end a message on a sincerely positive note.
So a version of this is also known as a “shit sandwich”, and it’s not clear to me that it is an effective pattern. In particular, it seems plausible that it only works a limited number of times before people start to notice and develop an aversion to it. I personally find it fairly irritating/annoying.
I think there’s a pattern where being pro forma or insincere is really bad.
But it seems low cost and valuable to add a sincere note saying:
“I really liked your motivation and effort and I think there’s potential from you. I like [this thing about you]...I think you can really help in [this way].”
Which is what you want right? And believe right? Otherwise why spend time writing feedback.
Mentees and junior people can be pretty fragile and it can really affect them.
Like, it’s not a high probability but there are letters or even phrases that someone will remember for years.
I think narrowly following the form can be kind of annoying, but the spirit of the idea is to do proof of work to show that you value their efforts, which can help to make it gut-level easier for the recipient to hear the criticism as constructive advice from an ally (that they want to take on board) rather than an attack from someone who doesn’t like them (that they want to defend against).
All my psych classes and management training have agreed so far that shit sandwich style feedback is ineffective because either people only absorb the negative or only absorb the positive. (This is more true if you have an ongoing relationship with someone—if you’re giving one-off feedback I guess you have no choice!)
I recommend instead framing conversations around someone’s goals. Framing feedback as advice to help someone meet their goals helps me to give more useful information and them to absorb it better, for example “Hiring managers will be looking for X, Y, and Z in your piece” or “Focused on A, B, and C would significantly increase the expected impacted of this piece of research” It’s even more useful if you ask them what they think about their own work first, because sometimes they can already identify some of the problems and you can skip that stage and go straight to giving advice on how to fix them!
Then, if this is someone you manage and you’re reviewing further drafts, give positive comments when they’ve updated it—and make a special effort to notice when they do well on those efforts in future papers.
I agree that if you’re giving one-off advice though the person will be looking to see if you think they have potential through your tone so it is worth reflecting how well you think they’re doing. (EDIT: I see that OP does tell people how well they’re doing but it’s not very encouraging. I agree it’s useful to explicitly say you’re glad they’re part of the EA community etc.)
“ I personally find it fairly irritating/annoying.”
What may be true for you may not be true for others. And all of us like to think we are capable of dispassionately analyzing and evaluating feedback, but sometimes monkey brain + emotions + deeply negative feedback = error
So a version of this is also known as a “shit sandwich”, and it’s not clear to me that it is an effective pattern. In particular, it seems plausible that it only works a limited number of times before people start to notice and develop an aversion to it. I personally find it fairly irritating/annoying.
It’s also not clear to me what flavor of encouragement is congruent with a situation in which e.g., getting EA jobs is particularly hard (though perhaps less so for research positions since Rethink Priorities is expanding!)
That said, you are just most likely just correct. I’d still be interested in getting the impression of someone with more research management experience, though.
I don’t have research management experience in particular, but I have a lot of knowledge work (in particular software engineering) management experience.
IMO, giving insufficient positive feedback is a common, and damaging, blind spot for managers, especially those (like you and me) who expect their reports to derive most of their motivation from being intrinsically excited about their end goal. If unaddressed, it can easily lead to your reports feeling demotivated and like their work is pointless/terrible even when it’s mostly good.
People use feedback not just to determine what to improve at, but also as an overall assessment of whether they’re doing a good job. If you only give negative feedback, you’re effectively biasing this process towards people inferring that they’re doing a bad job. You can try to fight it by explicitly saying “you’re doing a good job” or something, but in my experience this doesn’t really land on an emotional level.
Positive feedback in the form “you are good at X, do more of it” can also be an extremely useful type of feedback! Helping people lean into their strengths more often yields as much or more improvement as helping them shore up their weaknesses.
I’m not particularly good at this myself, but every time I’ve improved at it I’ve had multiple reports say things to the effect of “hey, I noticed you improved at this and it’s awesome and very helpful.”
That said, I agree with you that shit sandwiches are silly and make it obvious that the positive feedback isn’t organic, so they usually backfire. The correct way to give positive feedback is to resist your default to be negatively biased by calling out specific things that are good when you see them.
Good point, thanks.
This might be a cultural thing but in the UK/US/Canada, a purely negative note from a superior/mentor/advisor (or even friendly peer) feels really really bad.
I really strongly suggest if you are a leader or mentor, to always end a message on a sincerely positive note.
I think there’s a pattern where being pro forma or insincere is really bad.
But it seems low cost and valuable to add a sincere note saying:
“I really liked your motivation and effort and I think there’s potential from you. I like [this thing about you]...I think you can really help in [this way].”
Which is what you want right? And believe right? Otherwise why spend time writing feedback.
Mentees and junior people can be pretty fragile and it can really affect them.
Like, it’s not a high probability but there are letters or even phrases that someone will remember for years.
Thanks for the comment. Any thoughts on Linch’s comment below?
Thanks for the reply.
I think both your main post and Linch’s comment are both very valuable, thoughtful contributions.
I agree that such direct advice is under supplied. Your experiences/suggestions should be taken seriously and is a big contribution.
I don’t have anything substantive to add.
I think narrowly following the form can be kind of annoying, but the spirit of the idea is to do proof of work to show that you value their efforts, which can help to make it gut-level easier for the recipient to hear the criticism as constructive advice from an ally (that they want to take on board) rather than an attack from someone who doesn’t like them (that they want to defend against).
All my psych classes and management training have agreed so far that shit sandwich style feedback is ineffective because either people only absorb the negative or only absorb the positive. (This is more true if you have an ongoing relationship with someone—if you’re giving one-off feedback I guess you have no choice!)
I recommend instead framing conversations around someone’s goals. Framing feedback as advice to help someone meet their goals helps me to give more useful information and them to absorb it better, for example “Hiring managers will be looking for X, Y, and Z in your piece” or “Focused on A, B, and C would significantly increase the expected impacted of this piece of research” It’s even more useful if you ask them what they think about their own work first, because sometimes they can already identify some of the problems and you can skip that stage and go straight to giving advice on how to fix them!
Then, if this is someone you manage and you’re reviewing further drafts, give positive comments when they’ve updated it—and make a special effort to notice when they do well on those efforts in future papers.
I agree that if you’re giving one-off advice though the person will be looking to see if you think they have potential through your tone so it is worth reflecting how well you think they’re doing. (EDIT: I see that OP does tell people how well they’re doing but it’s not very encouraging. I agree it’s useful to explicitly say you’re glad they’re part of the EA community etc.)
Re: the Edit, I’ve added an additional paragraph to make that particular point slightly less biting.
Also, thanks for the point around framing in terms of people’s goals.
Yes, this makes some sense, thanks.
“ I personally find it fairly irritating/annoying.”
What may be true for you may not be true for others. And all of us like to think we are capable of dispassionately analyzing and evaluating feedback, but sometimes monkey brain + emotions + deeply negative feedback = error