How To Receive Feedback on Your Creative Work
The most common pitfall I see when creatives ask for feedback on their work is the phrase, “let me know what you think.” It may not seem like it, but phrasing the conversation this way makes giving and receiving feedback much more difficult, and leads to poorer outcomes creatively.
Let’s break down that sentence to understand why. Let’s also consider the phrase “let me know if you like it.” Both of these contain the words me and you. Subconsciously, when these words are in a sentence, things become personal. You could be a seasoned professional, working with another experienced producer, but when me and you are used, there’s no separating the work from the people.
These phrases also ask the feedback-giver whether or not they like it, and what they think about it. This changes the direction of the conversation in way it shouldn’t go. It doesn’t really matter what the reviewer thinks about it, or whether to not they like it. What matters is that it achieves its intended goal. But this question usually has the reviewer wondering how they can give the proper feedback without stomping on the creator’s work. And if they’re doing that, they’re probably pulling punches and making sacrifices.
So what’s a better phrase? “Let me know if this needs any adjustments.” And if you want to be really rigid about it, you can add, “to achieve the intended goal.” But even just asking for adjustments does two things. First, it assumes that there will need to be adjustments. And second, it takes the ego out of it, and gives the feedback-giver a chance to consider what might need to be adjusted, without worrying about hurting anyone’s feelings.
Receiving feedback isn’t easy. But the viability of a creator’s career depends on it. The better the work they create for their clients, and the better time their clients have working with them, have a direct effect on how often they get hired.
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