Early on in her tenure at Tailfin, our Managing Director Kelly Hackett dropped a Warren Buffet quote during a client feedback session, telling the team that “Feedback is a gift”. My first thought was “well that’s a little corny sounding.” As it turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong. Those 4 little words have become a cornerstone in how we build successful creative relationships — both within our own internal teams and definitely with our clients.
So what does “Feedback is a gift” really mean?
Great Gift Givers
We all know someone who gives great gifts. It’s the person who thinks through what you really want — or knows what you want even when you don’t. How do they do it? They listen. They get to know what makes you tick. They anticipate your reaction. But they also swing big — they take risks and dare to give what they think is right for you. In other words, they’re thoughtful and confident, daring, but vulnerable.
The same goes for great feedback. When it comes to weighing in on strategy or creative work, it’s easy to say you love something you really do love. It’s even easy to say you love something you actually just like. But it’s really hard to say “I dunno” or “that’s not for me” or “this just feels all wrong.” So-called negative feedback is tough for almost all of us to deliver (except the sadists that just like to be pains in the ass).
But unlike that soap-on-a-rope you gave dad for Father’s Day, there are only a few truly bad gifts when it comes to the gift of feedback. Usually, negative — or constructive feedback as it should be called — can be super helpful in challenging and refining a good idea. But too often it gets held back, hidden behind “the team is still reviewing options” deflections or, worse, the dreaded “well, we didn’t like it in the first round, but we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings” mea culpa 3 weeks down the road.
So how do we give good feedback, even when it feels bad? Here are three keys:
Ask for Honesty
It sounds like a simple request: “tell me, what do you really think?.” But, in so many relationships it’s such a loaded question it’s become the center of a zillion stale rom-com bits. But those situations are focused on personal relationships not business relationships, and as friendly as client-agency teams may be, advertising is a business relationship.
But, it’s still hard for a collaborator or client to feel there’s license to “be honest.” So, it’s incumbent on agency people to set the tone, letting everyone know we truly, actually, really want honest feedback. We can take it, and it will make everything — the work, the relationship, the timeline, and budget — all better. Seriously.
Don’t Just Ask for Honesty, Enable It
Of course, just telling people “let me have it” doesn’t always work. People are nice. They’re polite. Or, worse, maybe they’re scared — intimidated that their opinion doesn’t matter. That’s when you might need to bring some other tools to the table.
It could be a “secret ballot” vote in a meeting, individual 1:1 feedback sessions after a presentation, or an online forum where people can comment anonymously. It could be offering up new ways to review the work – like a live critique / brainstorming / adjustment session. Consider that a commenter may need a different framework or vocabulary to deliver good feedback (we once spent an hour with a client exploring what “elegance” looks like). We’ve invited clients to early round presentations to see how critical (constructively, of course) we can be with each other to establish a feedback “normal.”
Sometimes, just admitting that you as the presenter are feeling a little uneasy can help bring down someone’s guard to get to the good stuff. I realize some of this may sound a little scary, but trust me, it beats the alternative – silent dissent.
Don’t Just Enable Honesty, Demand it
Sadly, in the end, some people can’t deliver the precious gift of feedback — at least not honestly or succinctly when it might ruffle some feathers. Typically, these folks are repeat offenders, so, sometimes as a last resort we’ve had to have some really tough discussions, delivering our own commentary on their ability to deliver feedback and why it’s bad for everyone. I’d love to say that always led to a fix in the relationship, but that’d be breaking the rules here. Let’s just say that 50% of the time you get through and there’s real change. Otherwise, it may be time to move on.
The bottom line is Kelly (via Warren) was right. (Good) feedback is a gift. A complex, powerful, essential gift collaborators can give each other to make them both — and make the work — better. Even if it does sound a little corny.
Have an amazing (or amazingly bad) feedback moment to share? Lemme hear it!.
