The Three Faces of Feedback

Editor, expander, affirmer

If you go looking for feedback, you’ll usually encounter one of two kinds of people: the if-you-don’t-have-anything-nice-to-say… types, and the radical candor types.

The first group is fairly self explanatory. They’re the folks who are rooting for you and don’t want to hurt your feelings by saying anything that would undercut your confidence. If pressed, they might share something they found confusing, but they’re never going to stoop to outright criticism—there’s enough negativity in the world already!

The radical candor camp is the one that, until recently, I considered myself a part of. This view dictates that if you really care about helping someone improve, you need to give completely honest feedback about what is and isn’t working. Sure, this commitment to truth may be uncomfortable at times, but in the long run, it’s the surest path to success.

While I still believe in honest criticism, several years in the classroom have shown me that there is a considerable amount of tact in deciding which truths ought to be shared when. After all, any creative product or performance will always include certain elements worthy of praise and criticism—it’s just a question of which parts you emphasize.

For what it’s worth, I really don’t mean this in some abstract, “everyone-is-a-special-snowflake” sense. You could be an extremely bad poet—but simply being able to write a rhyming English poem at all is better than most people on the planet can do. (It’s probably better than you yourself could have done for the first decade of your life.) In other words, if we allow ourselves to consider the full range of human performance, we will surely find commendable aspects of any work. Conversely, Serena Williams may be the winningest player in tennis history, but she still loses a lot of games (just way less than anybody else, of course); so we never reach perfection—we just asymptotically approach it.

In light of this, I’ve come think of feedback as serving three distinct purposes, each suited to a different phase of creation/skill development: the Expander, for when someone is early in a project or not very skilled; the Editor, for when they are in the midst of honing their craft/product; and the Affirmer, for when a deadline is rapidly approaching—or it’s too late to make any changes.

I believe that a lot of creative conflict arises when one party is unclear about which kind of feedback is needed most, and that the right-timed feedback can vastly improve the joy and efficiency with which a project is completed. These faces of feedback, it should also be noted, are not mutually exclusive, and a single person can serve more than one role.

The Faces Explained

When we are early in a creative process, we know the fruits of our labor are not very impressive; what we need most is the confidence and intentionality to continue. But this does not require that our feedback providers offer false praise—which, of course, we would immediately recognize as unearned. Rather, we need the insight of their genuine reactions and curiosity, which will give us the motivation to continue and guide us in where to focus our efforts: “More of this,” they might say. “And what did you mean by that?”

It’s not that I think hyperspecific criticism serves no purpose at this early stage; I just don’t think it’s as helpful as more abstract, big-picture observations—which parts the creator needs to dial up and which they should turn down. As a writer, one of my biggest pet peeves is getting line edits on a piece that has bigger structural issues: Why would someone waste time moving commas around, I want to ask, in a paragraph they also think should be cut!?

(Although my primary lens here is on the writing, I believe these faces of feedback are generalizable to any domain where it takes time to develop a skill/product/oneself—a.k.a. pretty much all of them. I’ll have a lot more to say about the creative process writ large in future posts.)

When we’ve got a solid draft or something, or we’ve moved from a beginner to an intermediate phase of development, then it’s time for the feedback-giver to impose higher standards. This is where the Editor helps us by not pulling any punches, highlighting and labeling every little thing that’s not working. We’re ready for it now. We’ve earned it.

Unfortunately, we don’t always have time or ability to incorporate extensive edits, though: Our application is due tomorrow! The concert happened yesterday! Of course, there are professionals whose job it is to give public reviews of others’ performances, for the benefit of audiences who might encounter them. But when we are giving/soliciting feedback in our own lives, this late-stage critical approach is not particularly helpful. What we really need is an Affirmer—someone who will assure us that our cover letter looks great, the concert was a blast. Again, I do think the Affirmer’s feedback should be fundamentally true; the situation just calls for a near-total emphasis on the positive. Any constructive criticism should be limited to that which is applicable to future efforts.

Sometimes, of course, there is a mismatch between how far along the feedback seeker and the feedback giver believe a project is. “This is great!” the other person might say, for something you thought was garbage. Or, more often (for me at least), something I thought was near completion is revealed to have several major holes in it. So the wise Editor tries to judge how far along something is, and how much time remains to edit it, then tailor their feedback accordingly—slipping into Expander or Affirmer mode as needed.

These three faces aren’t a radical idea, but they can be challenging to execute well. It turns out (surprise!) it’s just really difficult to toggle between the different modes effectively, to accurately assess where someone is at in their process, where they think they’re at, and get the tone right. But there are a few things I believe can help:

1. Be strategic about who you seek feedback from when.

Although it’s possible for one person to play multiple roles at different points in the process, most of us have a preferred feedback mode to enter: asking questions about the work, evaluating the work, or simply enjoying the work. (And many people are also too busy to give input at every single step along the way, so you’ll only get one shot.)

Furthermore, some people are especially well equipped to give targeted criticism by virtue of domain expertise. It’s more difficult to find a good Editor, on the other hand, in someone who lacks the core skills/knowledge to articulate a work’s flaws.

On the other other hand, it’s possible for someone with less experience to still be a great Expander, if they bring natural curiosity or an interesting perspective. And pretty much anyone can be an Affirmer if they try.

2. Be clear about what kind of feedback you are seeking, and reject that which is not relevant to your current stage of the process.

This includes explicitly telling your feedback-giver what you are hoping for help with, how far along you think you are, and whether you have an approaching (or passed) deadline. Even so, you might still get unhelpful feedback—an expansion that it’s too late to incorporate, for example, or nitpicking that it’s too early to entertain. You are under no obligation to act on every piece of advice you receive.

3. When giving feedback, tailor it to the person seeking it.

The mirror image of the last two points. Again, a significant challenge arises when the person seeking feedback believes they are further along than the person giving it; then, the giver must carefully try to coax the receiver into viewing with fresh eyes the thing they already thought was great.

By taking an Expansive approach, however, this conversation is usually slightly less awkward: You’re not telling them their work sucks—just to beef up the good parts. Later, if they come back to you (or another Editor), they’ll learn what must be changed or eliminated.

TL;DR

I propose emphasizing a different face of feedback at different phases of project development: the Expander at the start; the Editor in the middle; the Affirmer at the end.

When the right kind of feedback is delivered at the right time (and by the right person), improvement both feels better and occurs along a faster, more natural trajectory.

Thanks to Ari for edits.