Work handed back
You worked hard on something and it has come back covered in corrections. You feel awful.
What do you do?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
Feedback you disagree with
You have thought about a piece of feedback for two days and you still think it is wrong.
What do you do?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
Criticism has two parts: how it feels, and what it says. They arrive together and only one of them is useful.
Read it twice
Read it once and feel the sting. Read it again the next day for the content. The second reading is where the information is.
Ask for specifics
"Which bit?" and "what would better look like?" turn vague criticism into something you can act on.
Some of it is wrong
You do not have to accept every piece. Consider it properly, then decide — rejecting it after thinking is different from rejecting it immediately.
Step 3: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 2
You get feedback that stings. When should you decide what to do about it?
Question 2 of 2
Somebody says your work "is not very good". What do you ask?
Step 4: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
The second reading
- Next time you get feedback, read it once and put it down.
- Read it again the next day.
- Write down the two most useful things in it.
Why: The second reading is where the information has been all along.
Step 5: What You Learned
- Feedback has a sting and a content. Only one is useful.
- Read it twice — the second time is where the information is.
- Ask which part, and what better would look like.
For the grown-up
How adults deliver criticism shapes whether a young person can hear any. Specific and about the work is usable; general and about the person is not.
The two-readings habit is worth teaching explicitly, because the immediate reaction is almost always either dismissal or collapse and neither survives a day.
Permission to reject some feedback matters. Young people taught that all criticism must be accepted become unable to filter, which is its own problem.