
You Won't Regret Positive Feedback - DanielRibeiro
http://zachholman.com/posts/positive-feedback
======
reissbaker
This is an interesting problem. I was a dual English/CompSci major in
undergrad, and while CompSci didn't have the notion of critiques, my creative
writing classes were almost entirely critique-based. Back then, critiques were
almost entirely pleasant and useful. When critiquing product — or even doing
code reviews — now, though, it often feels more confrontational.

I wonder how my English professors did it: they fostered an environment where
even though you may have slaved away for nights on your short story, _it was
alright_ when someone pointed out the flaws. Because critique is really
important for creating good products, whether those products are apps or
websites or code or short fiction. I don't regret ever giving positive
feedback, but I still do sometimes regret flaws in launched products. Could an
early critique have made things go another way?

I think at least part of why critiques worked so well in my creative writing
classes was the strong notion of authorship, and ownership — that you could
give your critique, but if the author disagreed, they were the author and in
control of the voice. In professional writing it can be different — your
editor can certainly force changes, with more or less control depending on the
industry — but even there, a lot of control is left to the writer: the editor
might say a section needs work, but even if they suggest changes they'll
generally allow writers control over phrasing.

Part of the problem might also be power dynamics: critiques in a professional
environment can come across as self-serving, or gunning for a promotion, or as
being enforced from the top. Is there a way to separate the critique from the
critic?

I don't know how to recreate my old English classrooms yet but I want to.
Positive feedback is important to create a healthy work environment, but if
you can't highlight problems then how will anyone consider fixing them?

~~~
gingerlime
That's very interesting. The difference I see between writing/writers and
programming/programmers is that, and please correct me if I'm wrong, writers
tend to work alone whereas programmers build code as a team.

So if I'm reviewing a pull request, it's code that's going to enter the shared
codebase, and touching code of others on the team. It's not the same as
reviewing someone's independent work, completely separate from my own.

I do wonder however about creative writing environments, where more than one
person is involved. One example I can think of (but have very limited
knowledge about) is comedy scriptwriting. I've heard it's usually a team of
writers that works on a sitcom. I wonder how they work together
constructively, and if there are lessons to be learned from those kinds of
environments. Or perhaps the same problems exist there as there are in
technology, where egos and timelines are involved...

~~~
reissbaker
That's a good point — it's a lot easier to give dispassionate negative
feedback if the person's work isn't directly tied to your own. And it's a lot
easier to view negative feedback as helpful rather than confrontational when
it's dispassionate.

------
columbo
> It seemed to work for Apple.

One of the greatest features of our universe is that the rules break down as
you reach the extreme ends of any standard distribution.

The most survivable weeds in my backyard are clovers and dandelions. However,
there is a huge vine growing in the corner of my fence, the thing is like an
oak tree. No other vines have grown up anywhere else, and even my attempts to
_encourage_ vines to grow along the side of my porch has failed.

If I were to focus on the impressive vine and ignore the clovers and
dandelions I'd jump to the conclusion that vines are the most successful weeds
in my backyard. While in reality I have no idea why the vine grew, but if I
take it out of the equation I can better focus on what is making the clovers
and dandelions grow.

Steve Jobs, Apple, Bill Gates, Microsoft, The Beetles, Rolling Stones and
countless other extremes do not make good case studies for how to do things
simply because their extreme success cannot be compared to anything else. They
are all like the vine in my backyard; a special case with an unknown history.

The best thing to do isn't to look at the most successful companies or people,
in fact, you would be better served taking the top 10% _out_ of the equation
and instead focus on what made the top 75-90% successful.

------
jarjoura
It's true that SJ built a high pressure work environment, but I bet if you
asked any Apple engineer, they would all admit they produced some of their
life's best work under that culture.

It may seem draining and offensive after the fact, but in the moment being
pushed to your max, you really can change the world.

No one is against more positive work places, but not everyone can handle
hostile ones, so there is an allure to that in itself.

~~~
aspir
The belief that someone will produce their "best work" in a stress-filled
deadline of _one project_ is shortsighted.

If by "best work" you mean "maximum extraction in a short time frame," you're
probably correct. But the belief that someone can truly produce a magnum opus
in the truest since within one project, especially a project that driven by a
negative taskmaster, is completely ludicrous. Its a myth perpetrated by the
taskmasters of this industry. These projects may culminate to their magnum
opus, but it's not yours.

~~~
zeteo
> the belief that someone can truly produce a magnum opus [...] within [...] a
> project that driven by a negative taskmaster, is completely ludicrous

There's a difference between a _stressful_ and an _honest_ environment. If you
read some of the classics of engineering literature ("Skunk Works", "Dealers
of Lightning" etc.), some of the greatest engineering projects ever created
were built with managers who were not afraid to tell people they sucked and
could do better. I think, in general, to produce a magnum opus most of us do
need an external, unbiased mirror of our performance. It's easy to err on the
negative side and discourage people; but erring on the positive side (which is
far more common these days) is also a betrayal of that person's true
potential.

------
krmmalik
I'm a big believer in the advice featured in the blog post. I think criticism
is the single most important thing that needs to be addressed in order to
solve dysfunctions in a team, and i recognise that addressing this can really
change the management fortunes of a business. But what really puzzles me is
how Steve Jobs get away with it. He built one of the best management teams in
the world, had great employee retention and yet clearly used short-sight
tactics for motivation. I just don't get how he pulled it off in spite of his
bad behaviour.

~~~
mmsimanga
For what its worth my previous boss seemed to share the same characteristics
as Steve Jobs. At times I didn't like him much but he had two redeeming
qualities. He was hard on everyone including the server guys who were giving
me the run around. Secondly he worked bloody hard! If I asked him to review
something, he really would review it. He replied all my emails in detail. When
I told him what I needed he would apply his energies to getting what I needed,
then it would be my turn to deliver.

Now that I don't work for my former boss I do miss his ability to get things
done. I guess the moral of the story is people can get away with Jobs' like
attitudes as long as they deliver themselves. Being shitty without the hard
work will lead to failure and very unhappy environments. Is it worth it I
don't know.

~~~
krmmalik
Very interesting. I hadn't considered that possibility before. Most of the
managers i come across excel in their ability to direct blame to others and
criticise yet can never deliver on their own promises or lead by example in
getting things done. I can see how, being a real doer would redeem them
greatly. It's starting to make sense now. This was a complete eye opener.
Thanks!

------
jamesaguilar
On the one-hand, yeah, positive feedback feels good and all. On the other
hand, as Gordon Ramsay says, "My team doesn't care about the positives. They
listen for the negatives." Maybe the difference is in the sense of ownership
the team feels over the final result. If the look, feel, and strategy has come
down from on high, listening for the negatives is of limited utility, since
you can't change anything anyway. But if everything is going forward on your
say-so, the negatives are a powerful tool that you should seek out at any
opportunity.

------
michaelochurch
The Steve Jobs effect is often taken to justify being an asshole. No. It's the
other way around, in fact.

Yes, Jobs was an asshole in many ways. By being such, he kept bikeshedding
executives and bullshitters in line. That is the Steve Jobs Effect, right
there. If you have a sniper on the bridge to shoot young wolves before they
become a problem, you'll have a much more effective company than if you let
the young wolf conflicts happen. It's not that executive assholes are good per
se; it's that they're better than young wolves.

Most large companies hire a pretty-faced do-nothing to be the CEO and leave
the nastiness to the lieutenants at lower levels. The CEO gets to be
everyone's friend. It's the VPs who play nasty games and carve out political
fiefs (because, if they don't, they won't get groomed to be future CEOs, there
or elsewhere). That makes the organization a lot more ineffective because they
all fight each other as they assert their own career agendas.

One of the Tories during the American Revolution wrote that he'd rather have 1
tyrant 3,000 miles away than 3,000 tyrants one mile away. I think there's
something there. Apple was an effective company because it had one asshole far
away from the people getting the work done, and he routinely made it so
unpleasant to be higher-up that only genuine people would even vie for it.
This kept the engineers and designers safe from the middle management and
junior executives who'd otherwise make their lives a living hell.

Look at Google. I know I pick on them a lot, but with a Steve Jobs that
company would _never_ have ended up with calibration scores. To lead any large
group of people you have to be enough of an asshole to understand how assholes
think. Google's founders are not assholes, and that's why they weren't able,
when calibration scores were first proposed, to shoot that idea from a bridge.

Ok, so am I pro-asshole? No, I'm not. Here's one thing to keep in mind. Steve
Jobs's are very rare. Assholes are not. For every person with that kind of
talent, there are 999 who think they do. Also, I don't think Steve Jobs was
that much of an asshole. He had his demons, sure. On the other hand, he seemed
to have a genuine interest in protecting engineers and designers from
executives and managers. If you were an engineer, he was kind to you. It was
only the VPs and above to whom he was known for being a jerk.

I think something more like Valve (open allocation, constitutional anti-
asshole employee autonomy provisions) is generally better than Apple
(dictatorial control) for most people (but not all). If you want world
domination like Apple, then maybe you need an asshole or two. If you just want
to build a good company, I think that assholes almost always take away more
than they bring. Steve Jobs really is a 4-sigma outlier. That's something that
the "tech" industry is getting quite wrong right now. Most of these startups
think there's something positive about hiring a few assholes while failing to
realize that _one_ can break a whole company.

Also, Fake Steve Jobs's tend to be freakishly common in VC-funded startups
where there isn't enough hierarchy for the Steve Jobs Effect to even make
sense. In a 10,000 person company, it's better for the 1 person at the top to
scare the next 99 enough that the leave the 9900 at the bottom alone so they
can make the company great. In a 75-person company, assholes are just outright
corrosive.

------
triplesec
Don't be a shithead. Good advice to remember at any time. Smart people often
mistake showing their smarts with being a shithead. The very smartest ones
grow out of it.

