Thanks so much for your thoughts Jorgen! The thing with feedback is always tricky, including when forcing positive feedback if you don't receive it. Regardless of how nicely you may communicate, some people might get it wrong, or think you're naive or crazy. But I believe it's worth trying, especially if you get to a point when you feel very frustrated.
These are good advice to keep, when criticism seems overwhelming. And it does for all professional writers, at times. Btw., positive criticism and telling a fish how nicely it is swimming is what I would see as a normal, polite behaviour. As I have asked so often – aren't we supposed to be polite at work?
Well, when managerial power goes in, politeness goes out, quite often.
Another aspect: lack of criticism can be almost worse than the wrong and too much. Have you ever tried writing a big document, full of details, then asking for feedback – because you know that there must be several details that you got wrong or, at least, have described in ways that aren't the typical ones for that business or product – but all you get back is "it looks good", or perhaps nothing at all.
This lack of quality control by the next level can be really problematic, as it is translatable to lack of support, lack of cooperation. Someone will this way allow for errors to slip through until a later point in the process, where it will then always fall back on you, despite that you tried to get some comments, wanted to take that round of additional improvements.
Feedback is indeed a two-edged sword. We need it to get forward, and we need it to be done with care – and then we also "don't need it", when it is somehow wrong, often solely negatively phrased. And there, your suggestion to ask for the good parts is actually worth gold: It's an invitation to start a dialogue, and dialogue is always the best way forward in a collaboration.
Thanks so much for your thoughts Jorgen! The thing with feedback is always tricky, including when forcing positive feedback if you don't receive it. Regardless of how nicely you may communicate, some people might get it wrong, or think you're naive or crazy. But I believe it's worth trying, especially if you get to a point when you feel very frustrated.
These are good advice to keep, when criticism seems overwhelming. And it does for all professional writers, at times. Btw., positive criticism and telling a fish how nicely it is swimming is what I would see as a normal, polite behaviour. As I have asked so often – aren't we supposed to be polite at work?
Well, when managerial power goes in, politeness goes out, quite often.
Another aspect: lack of criticism can be almost worse than the wrong and too much. Have you ever tried writing a big document, full of details, then asking for feedback – because you know that there must be several details that you got wrong or, at least, have described in ways that aren't the typical ones for that business or product – but all you get back is "it looks good", or perhaps nothing at all.
This lack of quality control by the next level can be really problematic, as it is translatable to lack of support, lack of cooperation. Someone will this way allow for errors to slip through until a later point in the process, where it will then always fall back on you, despite that you tried to get some comments, wanted to take that round of additional improvements.
Feedback is indeed a two-edged sword. We need it to get forward, and we need it to be done with care – and then we also "don't need it", when it is somehow wrong, often solely negatively phrased. And there, your suggestion to ask for the good parts is actually worth gold: It's an invitation to start a dialogue, and dialogue is always the best way forward in a collaboration.