Feedback Sweaters

When I talk about annual reviews, I talk about how we create and foster a culture that makes real-time feedback possible and why that matters, how being beautiful, messy humans often interferes with direct communication, how our biases shape the feedback we give and to whom, etc. I share tons of stories and examples to help the learning stick. A crowd favorite is an analogy about “feedback sweaters”, a concept I picked up from my amazing friend Liz Cruz (she/they) - clearly a fan of sweaters since her childhood. A while back we were talking about the adage, “feedback is a gift.” “Sure,” Liz said. “But the ‘we get to keep it, or donate it to a thrift store’ idea is too limiting. Feedback is like getting a sweater from someone. Sometimes the sweater is the perfect cut and color for you. It feels right immediately. Other times it is definitely the wrong cut, wrong color, and feels really itchy, so you take a hard pass. But you can also choose to keep the sweater. Maybe it falls on your closet floor and becomes a bed for your cat. And then one day you find it and try it on again, and maybe then, after some time has passed, it feels right.” Timing, as they say, is everything.

#leadership