I guess I think possibly that a “high feedback” culture needs to be:
Gracious—As @Kirsten says I find gracious feedback usually goes a lot better even if someone has behaved really badly.
If not about “really bad” stuff then feedback should be consensual as a norm—As a community I think we should want to be opting into feedback rather than assuming everyone wants it. People assume I want feedback a lot and frankly, I do, but some of it can be brutal. And I have pretty thick skin. I have been sad for days after EA feedback. I wouldn’t want other people to be treated like this without opting into it
A high gratefulness culture—sometimes I think in EA we are all waiting to correct but forget how large correction can loom in the group psyche. I know that we all grateful for each others effort, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like that. It would be easier to feel safe if people were more thankful to one another too. Several people have told me they dislike posting on the forum and I guess this is part of it
In particular, I sense most EAs should work on these things, rather than giving more feedback, unless the person has asked for it or are doing more than, say $100k of harm.
Also as a side note, sometimes a desire for feedback can be unhealthy. It can be a desire to provide feedback to others, or to not do the work to figure out what is right and wrong—“if everyone can give feedback and they aren’t, my behaviour must be fine”. Sometimes I ask for feedback out of a desire to hurt myself. I think in general feedback is good, but at times it can become pathological. I sense this isn’t the case for most people.
If not about “really bad” stuff then feedback should be consensual as a norm—As a community I think we should want to be opting into feedback rather than assuming everyone wants it.
I agree with this. It seems quite hard to implement well unfortunately. Asking if someone wants to hear some (negative) feedback can make it really hard for the other person to say no and already does some of the damage, so in some sense already takes away from it being truly consensual. There probably is some way to do this skillfully but it seems hard/if there is a way that just works and is easy to apply, I don’t know it. That said, I think asking someone if there wanna hear some feedback and if now is a good time is usually better than nothing.
(That said, we might disagree on the details of in which cases non-consensual feedback is fine.)
People assume I want feedback a lot and frankly, I do, but some of it can be brutal. And I have pretty thick skin. I have been sad for days after EA feedback. I wouldn’t want other people to be treated like this without opting into it
Interesting. I don’t think I’ve made this experience (much—I had this kind of feedback once in 2019). Unless I just can’t think of it right now (very possible, I’m very forgetful and easily miss obvious things), I don’t think people give me much feedback at all. I wonder if some of the difference in what we emphasise comes from a difference in how people treat us based on demographics etc. (I’m a small woman while Nathan is a tall man. I think my conversation style also projects less perceived confidence than his. I would expect most people to expect me to be more sensitive.)
So maybe one unintuitive takeaway could be “offer marginally more feedback to people who most people based on a shallow impression wouldn’t think can take it; be marginally more careful with feedback to people who most people based on a shallow impression would think can take it.”
edit: Some context is that I wrote this post as a reaction to being frustrated over the years with concrete instances of people not sharing important negative feedback and finding it a bit crazy that people don’t do so (not in they are crazy but it’s crazy that the world works that way) - some of this is second-hand knowledge though.
I guess I think possibly that a “high feedback” culture needs to be:
Gracious—As @Kirsten says I find gracious feedback usually goes a lot better even if someone has behaved really badly.
If not about “really bad” stuff then feedback should be consensual as a norm—As a community I think we should want to be opting into feedback rather than assuming everyone wants it. People assume I want feedback a lot and frankly, I do, but some of it can be brutal. And I have pretty thick skin. I have been sad for days after EA feedback. I wouldn’t want other people to be treated like this without opting into it
A high gratefulness culture—sometimes I think in EA we are all waiting to correct but forget how large correction can loom in the group psyche. I know that we all grateful for each others effort, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like that. It would be easier to feel safe if people were more thankful to one another too. Several people have told me they dislike posting on the forum and I guess this is part of it
In particular, I sense most EAs should work on these things, rather than giving more feedback, unless the person has asked for it or are doing more than, say $100k of harm.
Also as a side note, sometimes a desire for feedback can be unhealthy. It can be a desire to provide feedback to others, or to not do the work to figure out what is right and wrong—“if everyone can give feedback and they aren’t, my behaviour must be fine”. Sometimes I ask for feedback out of a desire to hurt myself. I think in general feedback is good, but at times it can become pathological. I sense this isn’t the case for most people.
I agree with this. It seems quite hard to implement well unfortunately. Asking if someone wants to hear some (negative) feedback can make it really hard for the other person to say no and already does some of the damage, so in some sense already takes away from it being truly consensual. There probably is some way to do this skillfully but it seems hard/if there is a way that just works and is easy to apply, I don’t know it. That said, I think asking someone if there wanna hear some feedback and if now is a good time is usually better than nothing.
(That said, we might disagree on the details of in which cases non-consensual feedback is fine.)
Interesting. I don’t think I’ve made this experience (much—I had this kind of feedback once in 2019). Unless I just can’t think of it right now (very possible, I’m very forgetful and easily miss obvious things), I don’t think people give me much feedback at all. I wonder if some of the difference in what we emphasise comes from a difference in how people treat us based on demographics etc. (I’m a small woman while Nathan is a tall man. I think my conversation style also projects less perceived confidence than his. I would expect most people to expect me to be more sensitive.)
So maybe one unintuitive takeaway could be “offer marginally more feedback to people who most people based on a shallow impression wouldn’t think can take it; be marginally more careful with feedback to people who most people based on a shallow impression would think can take it.”
edit: Some context is that I wrote this post as a reaction to being frustrated over the years with concrete instances of people not sharing important negative feedback and finding it a bit crazy that people don’t do so (not in they are crazy but it’s crazy that the world works that way) - some of this is second-hand knowledge though.