Feedback is Welcome

How do you prefer to receive feedback? What works best for you?

Feedback is hard; sometimes it’s hard to hear. But I asked for it, and I solicited anyway, because to me it’s very important. My preferred method of receiving feedback is in person. I think there’s so much room for misunderstandings and misinterpretations over email or chat. I can’t remember where I heard it first, but email or chat are for information sharing, it’s not for communication, and I think feedback needs to be communicated.

But in today’s virtual world, what if it was via a video platform, does that not work well either?

It works better, certainly than not having that. But I don’t know, there’s something about in person that’s still…I don’t know. You can read the body language, sometimes just only seeing the head, doesn’t give you the full picture of how the feedback’s being provided, or received. And to me, just getting the whole picture helps. But that being said, I think video conference is the next best thing. I try to save my most difficult conversations for in person.
Of course, that’s not always possible, and sometimes it takes too long, which is also not ideal. But for me, I like to receive it face-to-face, and sometimes, it’s not always easy to receive negative feedback. But what I tell people is, if I don’t know, I can’t fix something. And so, if I’m doing something that is bothering you, or you don’t think it’s a standard that you think it should, you need to tell me that.