Emily Falk

But I really love that she was open to that feedback.

Yes, I think Sue did herself and her students a big service by taking that moment to honor what she was feeling.

Because, of course, it feels hard to hear the things that we might be able to do better at.

And in the moment, I completely relate to the idea that we would have that moment of feeling defensive again.

And she also then was able to take a step back and think about think about it in context.

Right.

And also the idea that Desiree was willing to give that feedback, I think, speaks highly of Sue because students are in a somewhat vulnerable position.

And if they think that you're the kind of person who can't take critique, then I would imagine that they wouldn't give you that feedback in the classroom to begin with.

Exactly.

And I think that that type of response where somebody has a critique or feedback for us, that we can benefit from framing that situation as an opportunity for us to solve the problem together.

So when we do performance feedback in my lab, for example, one of the things that helps me a lot is when my team is giving me feedback about how I could be a better boss to have them also offer solutions.

So rather than just identifying the problems, when they give me thoughts about how we could solve the issue, how we could work around the

the thing that is a problem, then it puts us on the same team.

And likewise, when I'm trying to give them feedback, not just saying I need you to do this differently, but also, you know, what are the ways that I can support you to get additional training or

for us to rearrange things so that you have the time or the bandwidth and so on.

So basically thinking about situations where we're either giving or receiving feedback as opportunities to be on the same team with that person and first establishing that we both want to solve the problem and then assuming that's true, how can we do it together?

Laura Lee's situation is interesting because it sounds like she already has a norm with her friend that they give each other feedback.

And so if she knows this about her friend, that there are particular ways that he likes to get feedback, then that seems very valuable to know because on her side, the stakes might be pretty low in terms of whether she says, I'd like to give you some feedback versus here's something that I've been thinking about.

And so if those words have particular meaning to the person that she's interacting with, then that's really valuable information to have.

And so one of the things I take away from Laura Lee's story is this idea that norms matter a lot.