In July, three things were true:
I turned 47
Our kitchen went through an unplanned demolition
I let a long time pass between posts 8 and 9
The first one: yay! The second one: our dishwasher turned against us. That third one…
After the June post about plugging in to unplug, I froze. I wasn’t too busy, it wasn’t that I couldn’t think of topics, I didn’t lose interest. I wasn’t unplugging. I just froze. Diagnosing why I froze seems…not interesting. Making a choice to snap out of it is much more interesting. So here I am, snapping out of it and moving forward.
Then, what to write about? Which I hadn’t yet landed on when I walked into Oslo Coffee. Then, like a gift from the suburban sky, the following exchange happened between a woman sitting holding a baby and another woman walking by. In the audio reading, I am channeling the inflections as closely as I can to reality.
Woman walking by: “So cute! How old?”
Woman with baby: “Two months”
Woman walking by: “Two months! She’s so BIG!”
Woman with baby: “__________”
Now: She’s so big. What is that? Is that feedback? A review? A comment? I’m not a parent of a human, and maybe that’s a perfectly normal thing to say and way to say it. But man. It reminded me of flying through Dulles with my puppy, a woman asked me how old she was. I said “nine” and she promptly pulled her son’s hand back and said “be careful, that dog is very old.” Isn’t it funny how quickly something can spark a very emotional response?
So friends, let’s talk about comments. And I’ll posit the ultimate challenge here, up top: go do stuff and get some comments. You’ll learn a lot.
First: Feedback, reviews, and comments. Let’s get on the same page on the definitions, or at least the definitions I am using here. Because they could all feel kind of the same. But if we regard them all the same, we’re all going to go bananas.
So, definitions:
Feedback. This is a conversation. Period. Full stop. I have Maureen Taylor at SNP Communications to thank for my stalwart opinion on this one. Feedback is not what a manager writes in box on a form at a point in the year when a policy states that an employee must receive some content in a box on a form. If it’s only in writing, that’s a review (and I’ll get to that in a minute). Feedback has a higher purpose. It may be to support another person to stop being an idiot. It may be to support a high performer in becoming an even higher performer. It’s a conversation. The willingness to put an observation on the table, be intentional about the framing, and then engage in a back-and-forth dialogue to understand the reason. Unravel the cause from the effect. Feedback is indeed a gift, not just because it can be actionable and transformational, but because it means two people are taking the time to actually have a conversation.
Review. Here’s where we get the little boxes that the big managers fill out for their regular sized team members. They may be quarterly or mid-yearly or annually. On the internet, they are yelps and stars and NPSs. Reviews - while perhaps helpful for the recipient - are more often written for others to read. Reviews are somewhere on record, in a digital file folder of an employee, meant as data for future decisions. Attract or detract future promotions/spends/visits. At one point I was convinced that reviewers on Yelp were in search of their own book deal - some were downright poetic. Reviews are often event-based, cause and effect, action and reaction. A review may be alongside feedback, but it isn’t feedback by itself. Reviews are often for others.
Comment. “She’s so big.” This is the broadest, and perhaps the most confusing and emotional. This is also my favorite because: comment culture is fascinating. Comments are comments. Many are positive. The “HBD!” Under my Instagram post this weekend or the “Congratulations!” when there’s a “Thrilled to announce…” post on LinkedIn. Many are found in a section called “Comments.” Easy to identify. Comments can also be in a conversation, slyly trying to be feedback. An aside, an opinion (solicited or unsolicited).
Recently, I’ve been doing more stuff that has solicited more comments. I teach yoga and sculpt classes that are - as most profitable fitness classes are - open to the public. I write this on a now-once-again weekly basis. I write and publish content on behalf of organizations, teams, leaders. I teach leadership and communication workshops. Blah blah blah. I do stuff, and that stuff elicits comments. I teach a yoga class, the students get an email asking for comments. I teach a workshop, there is a QR code again asking for comments. Sure, we call it feedback, but I’m being strict on my classification here.
So over the last few weeks, a few of the comments I’ve received, referencing or describing a smattering of projects. You don’t have the context, I know, and that’s kind of the point. In the audio, I am going to try to read these in a totally neutral tone.
“The best”
“Not challenging and the music sucked.”
“Intentional and thought-provoking.”
“Tacky and tasteless.”
“Good energy”
“Incendiary”
Well, where does your mind get stuck? Mine, too. Fascinating. Even though they are all indeed comments - all asynchronous or asides with very little detail - they are not weighted equally in my brain. Not everyone agrees with my approach to things, I rationally know that. Our easy access comment culture has just given me the data to what I already know - but it doesn’t make some comments any less zingy. But/and: I have to remember my own definitions. This isn’t feedback. This is data from which I can create the actions.
So I’ve started to build my own lens around a comment or piece of data: take it in, thank it, choose an action (which might be just to categorize it), and move on. The first few relatively easy for me to do, I even did an out-loud “thank you” to what I can only imagine is a brutal hatred of Glass Animals. That last one? The move on? Still building that muscle. Good grief, I’m writing an entire article on this subject, perhaps because I haven’t yet moved on. Gen X (my generation) didn’t grow up in a social media, immediate comment culture outside of human interaction, of course. So we’ve learned, and we’re learning, how to handle it all with grace and class.
Ultimately, the more comments, the more it means you’re doing something. The more I put myself out there as the term may be, the more comments I am privy to. More data. And that’s kind of cool. It’s a daily practice to do good work and a daily practice to not make knee-jerk decisions from zinger or complimentary comments. Is it building resilience? Maybe, but that seems a bit dramatic. There are plenty of other things to be resilient about. Perhaps it’s actually just building perspective and pragmatism.
Feedback is a relationship. Reviews are often for others. Comments are data.
I’m writing this on a Thursday and teaching a class tonight that is a mix of yoga alignment, dance cardio, weights, and balance. I made the choices for the class from beginning to end. Words, moves, music. I may get comments: zingers and compliments. The point is: I’m out doing stuff.
Go do stuff. Teach a class. Publish a piece. Post a picture. Start a thing. Do it well and know it will get better. Go get your comments, thank them, take action…and move on.
