I was recently asked a question about reviews by a judge that I thought was worth exploring. Unfortunately, I lost the original transcript of the question, but I will paraphrase it:

I recently received a review with a lot of critical feedback. Is it okay for me to share the review with judges I will be working with in the future to see if I improve on the feedback I received?

Yes. Absolutely, yes. To me, this is obvious, and yet I got asked this question, and often get asked questions in a similar vein. What it boils down to is that people are misunderstanding what feedback and reviews are for, and that’s a damn shame.

They are for you. They are to help you improve as a judge. Everything else–job evaluation, information to help RCs staff events, permanent record–is secondary. When you receive a review, someone has taken the time to give you feedback about something you’ve done, and that feedback is now yours to do with as you please.

So yes, if you’ve received some strong, actionable criticism, you should share it with your trusted peers and mentors. As Kali said in her guest blog, “own up” to your weaknesses. I’ve said in the past that it isn’t enough to just ask your mentor for generic feedback. You should be driving the conversation, and what better way than to have them be aware of something that’s been observed about you in the past.

It’s understandable that you might be reluctant to share, especially if it is critical of your performance. There’s a natural tendency to feel ashamed when someone tells you that you’re doing something wrong. But those are the types of things that you absolutely should be sharing with people in order to get them to help you.

So if you want to share the text of the review, go for it. If you feel more comfortable paraphrasing it–“I’ve been told that…”–that works too. Like I said, this is your feedback; use it in the way that helps you best.

Riki Hayashi

Statistical Tidbit of the Week

Last month I took a quick look at the L2s in the Judge Program, the meat and potatoes, especially when it comes to feedback. Of the 839 L2s in the Judge Program, 419, or almost exactly half, have written 8 or more reviews. That’s a pretty interesting median. I hope that my efforts with this blog will lead to higher numbers (and higher quality feedback) when we revisit these statistics in the future. Here’s the full breakdown (keep in mind that each tier includes everyone in the lower tiers):

2 or more reviews written – 765 L2s
3 or more reviews written -701 L2s
4 or more reviews written – 631 L2s
5 or more reviews written – 581 L2s
6 or more reviews written – 529 L2s
7 or more reviews written – 472 L2s
8 or more reviews written – 419 L2s
9 or more reviews written – 409 L2s
10 or more reviews written – 384 L2s
11 or more reviews written – 364 L2s