{"id":557,"date":"2016-08-30T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T15:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/?p=557"},"modified":"2017-03-03T13:12:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T18:12:29","slug":"say-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/2016\/08\/30\/say-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"Say Anything."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JennYou know, writing and judging really have a lot in common. That probably has something to do with why I enjoy both of them so much. One of those things, one that it took me an incredibly long time to get over, is that it\u2019s hard to know how you\u2019re doing unless someone else tells you.<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a solo quest.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When you write something, you know what you <\/span>meant<\/span><\/i> to say. You know how you <\/span>intended<\/span><\/i> it to come across. You can clearly see the brilliance of your vision.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the problem. Your notion of what your writing <\/span>is supposed to be<\/span><\/i> clouds your ability to see what\u2019s<\/span> actually on the page<\/span><\/i>\u2014to listen to how you sound to the players\u2014to understand how they feel about their interaction with you.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why feedback is so vital, both to writing and to judging. Other people aren\u2019t in your head. They don\u2019t know what you meant–they only know what you wrote or did or said. They can tell you what they observed, and they can tell you what they felt about their observations. Your intentions don\u2019t cloud their perception, and that different perspective is one of the most valuable things that we can offer to each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

As a community, we\u2019ve done a good job of talking about how important feedback is. We\u2019ve even created places where we can talk about how to improve giving feedback. There are lots of articles floating around (see: <\/span>this blog<\/span><\/a>) about how important it is to be open to constructive criticism, to learn from it, and to use it as a springboard to improve yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems like one of the pillars of that message is that you can\u2019t take feedback personally.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing:<\/span><\/p>\n

That advice is crap.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I wanted to say something stronger, but Angela, the editor of this blog, wouldn\u2019t let me. <\/span>So, I\u2019m just going to say it again instead. <\/span>You know, for emphasis:<\/span><\/p>\n

That advice is crap.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Feedback can hurt. You devote time and energy to judging events. You have goals and aspirations. Being told that you didn\u2019t live up to your vision, that you didn\u2019t perform the way that you wanted to\u2026that sucks.<\/span><\/p>\n

It sucks a lot. The more invested you were in an event or project\u2026the more it sucks.\u00a0<\/span>The higher your hopes\u2026the more it sucks. The more pressure you felt to do well\u2014if you\u2019re team leading or head judging for the first time, for example\u2014the more it sucks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pretending that it doesn\u2019t suck, that the negative feedback doesn\u2019t hurt\u2014that isn\u2019t going to help you. It isn\u2019t going to help anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Riki<\/a><\/span><\/span> and I recently had a Slack conversation about a dichotomy that he sees around feedback. This is what he said:<\/span><\/p>\n

Judges like feedback as coaching. They dislike feedback as evaluation.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that part of the reason for this distinction is that we\u2019ve been conditioned to think that being hurt by feedback isn\u2019t okay\u2014we\u2019re not supposed to take it personally. <\/span>But sometimes it does hurt.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The intersection of these two things (assuming we should have super-thick skin and reacting to feedback emotionally) makes us feel even worse than the feedback itself. And then we have these negative conversations with ourselves: <\/span>Why can\u2019t I read this without feeling this way? I can\u2019t even take criticism right!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This doubling-down of feel-bads doesn\u2019t just affect how we receive feedback. It influences how we write reviews, too. We don\u2019t want other judges, our friends and colleagues, to feel bad. Because it sucks.<\/span><\/p>\n

So sometimes we overcompensate with what Riki referred to as coaching:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think A would have been more effective than B.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cI think that if you prioritized C instead of D, the players would have had a better experience.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cI think that you should try Z in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In some ways, coaching is great. Our attempts at self-improvement thrive when we can incorporate the perspective, expertise, and experience of other people into our own thoughts and processes. It\u2019s an essential way to share information. So what\u2019s wrong with it?<\/span><\/p>\n

It can mask the underlying problem.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Take the first example above: <\/span>I think A would have been more effective than B.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

What if B, whatever it is, is actually just bad? That information gets lost. A judge who isn\u2019t comfortable with your suggestion, maybe because it\u2019s new or strange or different for them, might interpret that feedback to mean that A is just an alternative that you\u2019re offering, rather than realizing that their previous approach was flawed in some way.<\/span><\/p>\n

We tend to avoid <\/span>evaluation<\/span><\/i> of another judge\u2019s performance. We try to avoid making value judgments about the work of others because we don\u2019t want them to feel the hurt that we associate with a negative review\u2014because we know how much that sucks.<\/span><\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing:\u00a0<\/span>That might not really be helping.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We\u2019re giving them an out to internalizing what they\u2019re saying by offering it up as an option or a choice instead of being clear about our thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n

What can we do instead?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Accept that criticism hurts.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Seriously. It\u2019s okay. It can feel bad. It can feel completely and totally miserable. You have permission to curl up on the couch and eat ice cream with your cat until it doesn\u2019t hurt anymore, but only if you return to that feedback once it stops being awful and try to learn something.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting there can take time. You might not be ready to deal with the feedback right away, and that\u2019s also totally okay. You might have to start and stop a couple times before you can put aside your initial reaction completely and listen to what\u2019s there. It might take more time than you\u2019d like. It\u2019s probably frustrating. I know it is for me. All of this is part of being human.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Eric-Levine_boombox\"Don\u2019t be afraid to feel hurt by constructive criticism.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t feel bad that you\u2019re taking it personally. It is personal. It\u2019s about your work, and you\u2019ve put time and effort and love into it. Learning that you didn\u2019t do everything perfectly isn\u2019t a great experience. Doing it better next time is. And it\u2019s not just about accepting that criticism hurts when we\u2019re receiving it.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let the fear that someone else will be hurt by your constructive criticism prevent you from telling them what you think.
\n<\/span><\/i>
\nDon\u2019t let it muddle your message. Be diplomatic, but know that they can handle it. We all can. It might sting for a while, but we\u2019ll all be better for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know, writing and judging really have a lot in common. That probably has something to do with why I enjoy both of them so much. One of those things, one that it took me an incredibly long time to get over, is that it\u2019s hard to know how you\u2019re doing unless someone else tells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[39,41,4,42,25],"tags":[45,23,46,44,43,38],"language":[78],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching","category-evaluation","category-guest-blog","category-jennifer-dery","category-strategy","tag-coaching","tag-edited-by-angela-aliff","tag-evaluation","tag-guest-blog","tag-jennifer-dery","tag-strategy","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","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\/275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}