{"id":1215,"date":"2017-12-05T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/?p=1215"},"modified":"2017-12-05T13:37:47","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T18:37:47","slug":"the-value-of-emotional-feedback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/2017\/12\/05\/the-value-of-emotional-feedback\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Emotional Feedback"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In a recent conversation about reviews, a friend gave two reasons why they hadn\u2019t written any recently.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any constructive criticism.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that I have anything valuable to say.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

These two statements are pervasive within the judge program. They\u2019re also false.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When we\u2019re writing our first few reviews as new judges, we\u2019re usually told we must include constructive criticism. Of course, constructive criticism is important and in our early reviews it can be intimidating to bring up, especially when you yourself are new. Sometimes you won\u2019t have enough experience with somebody to get complex and rich feedback where you can honestly critique their complete approach. But that\u2019s ok – you can still highlight something that they did well, something that you feel that is good for both them and their events. A common bit of feedback, \u201cDo that more\u201d isn\u2019t critical, but it is very actionable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re comfortable with writing a review without constructive criticism, you may think that you don\u2019t really have any valuable feedback. You may feel like, your subject has probably heard your comments before, so saying it again won\u2019t add any value. This hasn\u2019t been true in my experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most powerful pieces of feedback I\u2019ve received was,\u201cYour smile is infectious.\u201d At the time, it didn\u2019t really feel like feedback or even related to judging at all. However, I\u2019ve discovered its incredible value.<\/span><\/p>\n

It made me feel good. While that is nice, it didn\u2019t seem particularly relevant to judging. Furthermore, because I hadn\u2019t thought of smiling as a part of my judge kit before, the feedback let me know that it was taken into consideration. Being friendly and approachable helps ease tensions at rough calls and gives players a better experience when they \u201cdun goofed\u201c. Finally, smiling wasn\u2019t something that I did actively. After it was brought to my attention as a positive trait, I started to use it as a part of my toolkit.<\/span><\/p>\n

That feedback wasn\u2019t critical, it wasn\u2019t actionable, it was, from an objective perspective, not particularly \u201cgood\u201d feedback. But on an emotional and subjective level, it was foundational in developing me as a judge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another friend of mine said that one of their most cherished sentences in a review was, \u201cYou are the judge I imagine myself to be.\u201d While there was some context that listed particular traits, this singular sentence stuck with my friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Giving purely positive feedback can create true emotional value. It may not be something mechanical that we can put into practice like a deck sorting technique, it may not show us something new to do at all, but it can make us feel good. It can make us feel that what we do matters.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, Eric Dustin Brown highlighted the judge program as a cult of self-improvement in the article <\/span>celebrating 100 posts<\/span><\/a> \u00a0But we\u2019re more than that, we\u2019re a cult of improvement. We can help our friends grow, and highlighting our favorite things about them can encourage them to keep on being the great judges they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry if your review is too short, or that it doesn\u2019t seem to have any paths for direct growth. If you\u2019re invested in your colleague\u2019s success, it\u2019ll show, and that is critical to successful feedback.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent conversation about reviews, a friend gave two reasons why they hadn\u2019t written any recently. \u201cI don\u2019t have any constructive criticism.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know that I have anything valuable to say.\u201d These two statements are pervasive within the judge program. They\u2019re also false.   When we\u2019re writing our first few reviews as new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40,120],"tags":[62,84,122],"language":[78],"class_list":["post-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciation","category-jonah-kellman","tag-appreciation","tag-edited-by-erin-leonard","tag-jonah-kellman","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}