Does anyone have an idea why doom circles have been so successful compared to the opposite type of circle where people say nice things about each other that they wouldn’t normally say?
Relatedly, I have a hypothesis that the EA/rationalist communities are making mistakes that they wouldn’t make if they had more psychology expertise. For instance, my impression is that many versions of positivity measurably improve performance/productivity and many versions of negativity worsen performance (though these impressions aren’t based on much research), and I suspect if people knew this, they would be more interested in trying the opposite of a doom circle.
As a teacher, I’ve generally found it to be the case that specific positive feedback (“keep doing this!”) is the most useful way of improving someone’s performance, followed by specific advice (“you could achieve X if you tried Y”, “why not experiment with Z and see if it helps?”).
If this were focused on red-teaming a particular project, it sounds more useful, but I don’t understand why it would be described as a doom circle then!
Thanks! Doom Circles are a specific format that CFAR came up with years ago. I didn’t mean to suggest that this is the best format or the best way of giving feedback. But it is one that I’ve found useful sometimes and I wanted a link to use as a reference :)
I’m working with a colleague on a format that is closer to a combination of this and red-teaming a particular project. If it goes well I might post about that as well (I needed a link to Doom Circles for an email about the new format, which is what prompted this post).
I’m not familiar with the opposite type of circle format. I have a few events coming up over the next month, so might not get back around to this, but I’d like to put more thought into a format like this.
A couple of things that I have done that come to mind:
At a recent retreat, a colleague and I ran something like a doom circle followed by “gratitude/excitement” circles and I quite liked it.
In the “gentle” doom circle I described above we did something like an even split of doom followed by saying nice things. I found the nice really helpful too because I had blindspots about positive things that others in the group could see more easily.
Another thing that comes to mind is a quote from the Manger’s Handbook “It’s downright criminal to hold back positive feedback from people. Don’t be afraid to praise even tiny things. Remember that when you give negative feedback you’re generally picking up on tiny things.”
Thanks for raising this. I’ll be curious to hear if other people have done things in this direction.
Does anyone have an idea why doom circles have been so successful compared to the opposite type of circle where people say nice things about each other that they wouldn’t normally say?
Relatedly, I have a hypothesis that the EA/rationalist communities are making mistakes that they wouldn’t make if they had more psychology expertise. For instance, my impression is that many versions of positivity measurably improve performance/productivity and many versions of negativity worsen performance (though these impressions aren’t based on much research), and I suspect if people knew this, they would be more interested in trying the opposite of a doom circle.
As a teacher, I’ve generally found it to be the case that specific positive feedback (“keep doing this!”) is the most useful way of improving someone’s performance, followed by specific advice (“you could achieve X if you tried Y”, “why not experiment with Z and see if it helps?”).
If this were focused on red-teaming a particular project, it sounds more useful, but I don’t understand why it would be described as a doom circle then!
Thanks! Doom Circles are a specific format that CFAR came up with years ago. I didn’t mean to suggest that this is the best format or the best way of giving feedback. But it is one that I’ve found useful sometimes and I wanted a link to use as a reference :)
I’m working with a colleague on a format that is closer to a combination of this and red-teaming a particular project. If it goes well I might post about that as well (I needed a link to Doom Circles for an email about the new format, which is what prompted this post).
Makes sense, it’s always nice to have a reference to link to
I’m not familiar with the opposite type of circle format. I have a few events coming up over the next month, so might not get back around to this, but I’d like to put more thought into a format like this.
A couple of things that I have done that come to mind:
At a recent retreat, a colleague and I ran something like a doom circle followed by “gratitude/excitement” circles and I quite liked it.
In the “gentle” doom circle I described above we did something like an even split of doom followed by saying nice things. I found the nice really helpful too because I had blindspots about positive things that others in the group could see more easily.
Another thing that comes to mind is a quote from the Manger’s Handbook “It’s downright criminal to hold back positive feedback from people. Don’t be afraid to praise even tiny things. Remember that when you give negative feedback you’re generally picking up on tiny things.”
Thanks for raising this. I’ll be curious to hear if other people have done things in this direction.
Me neither really—I meant to refer to a hypothetical activity.
And thanks for the examples!