Dangerous Feedback

Hello, do you approve of this post? Can you please validate me? I'm begging you... sounds stupid, right? In my life as a keynote speaker, I've noticed a big trend lately where we try to be polite and ask for feedback or opinions from our people, teams, and employees to try to be even more polite. But wait, does this make sense?

One of the lessons I learned from a retired multinational stock-listed and family-owned company, which I'm not authorized to disclose its name, was about all the years it takes to become a professional in what you do. It's not only the time; it's actually the experience you gain, your relevance, or the classic; "in this case, we will do this or that in a specific way". Being able to have the trained nose is nothing anyone can gain overnight doing an MBA at whatever university. Your value is what you know and with whom you hang around.

Let me make this clear: as an asset, your net value equals your (knowledge + skills) multiplied by your attitude. You can have all the training on the planet, but if you're a lazy ass, then nothing will work. Or you can have an amazing CV, but if you don't know how to lead people, you won't succeed. As I always try to push in all my articles and posts, we need to know ourselves; only then can you lead people effectively.

The problem today in the B2B scene: everyone is so fragile that we have to let anyone have an opinion on something they have no idea about, but because we have to be polite, we let the opinion holder without experience win over the qualified expert. This is messed up. Yes, I'm not happy while I'm writing this because it's becoming a problem. Let's put it in perspective with these questions:

Imagine you do some work for a business, and after your work, you'll get feedback. Here's the questions of a real feedback form:

• Was the work delivered with the expected quality?
• What did you miss?
• Was there something you didn't like?
• Do you find this product/service useful?

Now, I will write my comments in the same order:

• This is the easy answer. Okay, you can like more or less and perceive quality, but it definitely will depend on your education.
• Let's get dirty; Who are you to find what is missing & why are you even working here if you know what is missing?
• Oh oh oh, did we annoy you, little swan? I'm sorry, life is not a silky carpet. To learn things, you need truth; you need to be uncomfortable. Otherwise, your ultra-polite environment will always be the same, without progress.
• Okay! Let's ask the person who doesn't know, to qualify the one who knows... what the hell? Do you see where I'm going?

To summarize, it's not okay to ask for feedback from people who don't know or are not at the same level as the professional service or product. Just like a surgeon doesn't ask a nurse if the suture of the damaged kidney is done correctly...

Less feedback and more sales leaders telling their tribe what to do, and not asking if they like it or not. A leader is a leader and has to know what to bring to their hungry puppets to succeed.