Feedback Quotes

“If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.”
― Roberto Bolaño, The Insufferable Gaucho

“Failure is constructive feedback that tells you to try a different approach to accomplish what you want.”
― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

“Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn't.”
― Matthew Syed

“Online review sites are the slushpiles of feedback.”
― S. Kelley Harrell

“Successful people use failures to sharpen their intuition by acknowledging mistakes for what they truly are - feedback.”
― Gordana Biernat

“The exciting aspect of creating a classroom community where there is respect for individual voices is that there is infinitely more feedback because students do feel free to talk — and talk back. And, yes, often this feedback is critical. Moving away from the need for immediate affirmation was crucial to my growth as a teacher. I learned to respect that shifting paradigms or sharing knowledge in new ways challenges; it takes time for students to experience that challenge as positive.”
― bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

“If you are blind to your flaws, you can’t address them.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, Leadership by Example: Be a role model who inspires greatness in others

“There is no such thing as perfect communication; there is effective communication, which is a process of feedback and progressive adjustments. The delusion that perfect communication is possible generates a frustration that damages our relationships and personal lives.”
― Luigina Sgarro

“You must invite honest and accurate feedback. Surround yourself with people who care and aren’t afraid to speak up to you directly, face to face.”
― Binod Shankar, Let's Get Real: 42 Tips for the Stuck Manager

“The Next Go-To Spot. The tender brisket, with a crust as perfect as praline candy, will make you want to brave the rush-hour traffic just to sample it. The sauces are smooth as silk and layered with infusions of spice. Rather than being an afterthought, the sides deserve a life of their own. Margot Salton is a sorceress, wielding her unique mastery over wood and smoke and fire.
“Wow,” Margot said. “That’s a damn love letter. Thanks, sugarman74.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Tracer bullets show what you’re hitting. This may not always be the target. You then adjust your aim until they’re on target. That’s the point. It’s the same with tracer code.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“With a tracer bullet approach, you can implement very small bits of functionality very quickly, and get immediate feedback on how well your team communicates and delivers.”
― Andy Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Most of us don’t experience feedback and critical questions as a creative experience.”
― Natalie Nixon, The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work

“Feedback is empowering your team to ask questions, make suggestions, raise concerns, and/or challenge ideas.”
― Nick Chellsen, A Leader Worth Imitating: 33 Leadership Principles From the Life of Jesus

“Experience alone is not enough. It isn’t automatic. You must get feedback and introspect and slowly your values get crystallized. It’s a fun journey and a wonderful place to be. Because it’s all about knowing yourself and the world around you and that knowledge is true power.”
― Binod Shankar, Let's Get Real: 42 Tips for the Stuck Manager

“You take criticism personally. This is because you have an ego the size of North America,”
― Binod Shankar, Let's Get Real: 42 Tips for the Stuck Manager

“Researchers have proposed two primary explanations for this phenomenon. First, by virtue of their level, senior leaders simply have fewer people above them who can provide candid feedback. Second, the more power a leader wields, the less comfortable people will be to give them constructive feedback, for fear it will hurt their careers. Business professor James O’Toole has added that, as one’s power grows, one’s willingness to listen shrinks, either because they think they know more than their employees or because seeking feedback will come at a cost.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. One analysis showed that the most successful leaders, as rated by 360-degree reviews of leadership effectiveness, counter act this tendency by seeking frequent critical feedback (from bosses, peers, employees, their board, and so on). They become more self-aware in the process and come to be seen as more effective by others.”
― Susan David, Self-Awareness

“To understand how you are percieved by others, ask:

1. What’s the general perception of me?
2. What could I do differently that would have the greatest impact on my success?

Depending on the person, you’ll hear responses ranging from eye-opening and helpful to vague and confusing. If the person is uncomfortable, they may rely on job- or project-specific feedback. In that case, clarify:
I appreciate that feedback. May I go up a level now and ask about the general perception of me as a leader/colleague/person?

Manage your reaction. Resist the temptation to explain yourself, defend your actions, or reveal disappointment. Your interviewees will be looking to see what effect their feedback has on you in real time. The quality of your feedback will only be as good as your ability to remain comfortable while receiving it. Ask for details or examples if you need them. And end with a sincere thank-you.”
― Susan David, Self-Awareness

“Janet, a chemist and a team leader at a pharmaceutical company, received glowing comments from her peers and superiors during her 360-degree review but was surprised by the negative feedback she got from her direct reports. She immediately concluded that the problem was theirs: “I have high standards, and some of them can’t handle that,” she remembers thinking. “They aren’t used to someone holding their feet to the fire.” In this way, she changed the subject from her management style to her subordinates’ competence, preventing her from learning something important about the impact she had on others.
Eventually the penny dropped, Janet says. “I came to see that whether it was their performance problem or my leadership problem, those were not mutually exclusive issues, and both were worth solving.” She was able to disentangle the issues and talk to her team about both. Wisely, she began the conversation with their feedback to her, asking, “What am I doing that’s making things tough? What would improve the situation?”
― Susan David, Self-Awareness

“Feedback is the tonic of great champions; be humble to take the good, the bad, and the ugly of feedback.”
― Daniel ANIKOR, CATCH THEM YOUNG

“The impact of personality was overridden by whether the employees at the company perceived social norms that favored speaking up. If a company were interested in getting people to speak up, they'd be better off putting their energy into cultivating new norms rather than selecting gregarious employees.”
― Geoffrey L Cohen, Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides - Library Edition

“Another way to foster a sense of belonging for employees is to form teams that are encouraged to engage in collective problem-solving. This affords regular opportunities for all members of the teams to express their views and contribute their talents. But leaders of these teams should establish the norm that colleagues treat each other with respect, making room for everyone in discussions and listening thoughtfully to one another. As we saw with high-status students leading the way in establishing an antibullying norm in schools, managers, as the highest-status member of a team, can set powerful norms. A key goal is foster what leadership scholar Amy Edmonson calls psychological safety, which she describes as "the belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk taking. People feel able to speak up when needed--with relevant ideas, questions, or concerns--without being shut down in a gratuitous way. Psychological safety is present when colleagues trust and respect each other and feel able, even obligated, to be candid." No matter how ingenious or talented individual team members are, if the climate does not foster the psychological safety people need to express themselves, they are likely to hold back on valuable input.”
― Geoffrey L Cohen, Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides - Library Edition

“By fostering self-regulated learning skills, transformative teaching empowers students to become active participants in their own education, enabling them to set goals, monitor their progress, and adapt their learning strategies to achieve success.”
― Asuni LadyZeal

“Through the application of behavioural theories, transformative teaching emphasizes the importance of providing consistent reinforcement and constructive feedback to encourage desired behaviours and academic growth in students.”
― Asuni LadyZeal

“Transformative teaching harnesses social cognitive theory to promote observational learning and modelling behaviours, allowing students to learn from their peers and role models, enriching their understanding and enhancing collaborative learning experiences.”
― Asuni LadyZeal

“Through individualized feedback, educators nurture students' sense of competence and provide tailored guidance that celebrates progress and cultivates confidence in their abilities.”
― Asuni LadyZeal

“Any negative feedback stings, but feedback that doesn’t align with who you are at your core can hurt even worse because you feel misunderstood. How you react to the feedback and what you do afterwards will impact your career trajectory at the company. Your first instinct may be to rebut, defend, or explain the behaviors that led to the feedback. But perceptions don’t change because of explanations or more information; they change over time after you adjust your actions and behaviors.”
― Marlo Lyons

“As spiritually conscious adults we consider everyone our teacher an no one our competitor. Thus, to react defensively to feedback means losing out on useful input. To defend how we are is to stay as we are, and it ruins our chances at personal development and intimacy too. Instead, listen to feedback in such a way as to find a useful truth in it. Nothing is so disarming as receptivity. Receiving feedback willingly soon reveals itself to be a way of receiving more love.”
― David Richo, How to be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving

“Failure is just feedback; use it to your advantage.”
― Jen Alvares

“A leader must be able to look a subordinate or superior square in the eye and tell him what the problem is and what needs to be done to fix it.”
― Paul R. Howe, Leadership And Training For The Fight: A Few Thoughts On Leadership And Training From A Former Special Operations Soldier