The Two Traps of Feedback

Living in the future with a new product, service, or point of view (POV)—while a worthwhile endeavor—presents all kinds of issues; and we've covered a lot of them. Living in the future means that many people won't get the joke, that what you're doing might not work, and that the journey will have its emotional ups and downs. But one topic we haven't covered is the topic of feedback.

At Pariveda we prize both the POV process and the process of giving feedback. And the two often intersect. Nobody develops a new product, service, or POV in a vacuum. Which means that regardless of the product, service, or idea you're creating you'll be getting feedback from others.

As a culture, we've gone a little feedback-mad. It's common now to establish feedback loops and to focus on being "feedforward"—which is the positive psychology, fail-forward version of feedback. But lost in all of this focus on feedback is the fact that all feedback you receive needs to be filtered through two questions:

1. Who am I trying to serve with my new product, service, or idea? And,
2. What am I trying to do for them?

Who Am I Trying to Serve?

The first trap of receiving feedback is not filtering it through the lens of who you are trying to serve. If you're trying to design a new modern working environment, the feedback you get is going to be different from Baby Boomers than it is from Gen Z. If you're designing a new product, the feedback you get from your customers is going to be different from that of your spouse.

All feedback is fine, but without the lens of who you are trying to serve, the feedback you receive can be disorienting and it can take you in the wrong direction. Generic feedback from someone who doesn't get what you're trying to do is nice, but it's only useful if that feedback reflects the views of the people you're trying to serve. Generic feedback pales in comparison with generous feedback. And you'll know when you get generous feedback, because it will sound something like, "For the person you're trying to serve I think this will resonate over that."

What Are Your Trying to Accomplish?

The second trap of receiving feedback is not filtering it through the lens of what you're trying to accomplish. Having the mindset of an engineer is useful here. If you're building a bridge, you don't really care if someone else likes the bridge, what you care about is whether it holds weight. When someone is giving you generic feedback they'll tell you whether they like what you're doing, but that's less important than whether it's effective. I see this most often in how sales decks are developed. Everyone has an opinion on how to sell, but lost in the conversation about selling is the fact that sales has many of the same kinds of effectiveness metrics as building a bridge.

You'll know when you've heard generous effectiveness feedback when it sound something like, "I think doing this over that will get you more of what you're trying to accomplish."

For Our Clients

When the organizations we work with are doing voice of the customer, voice of the market, or internal discovery sessions; and when they're developing new products, services, ideas, or go to market strategies; we help them get really clear on how to filter the feedback they're receiving from the market through the lenses of:

• Who are you trying to serve with your new product, service, or idea? And,
• What are trying to do for them?

Going through this exercise is often the difference between having clients who are confused by the market feedback they're receiving and having clients who can use feedback to focus their efforts on the initiatives that produce true ROI.