A colleague recently gave me some unsolicited, direct feedback about my poor facilitation skills, and I'm not gonna lie - It hurt! Actually, I'm very grateful as it helped me reflect on behavior that I had NO IDEA was going on - and I consider myself a reflective fellow (he said, humbly"). However, this reminded me of a quote that Russ Roberts of Econtalk is fond of quoting from Richard Feynman, "The most important thing is not to fool yourself, and you are very easy to fool."
As a Principal, I give a lot of feedback and getting a taste of that feedback makes me want to give direct and clear feedback to others more and more. True professionals want to improve their craft and get better and they will only benefit from honest feedback provided in an environment that is safe and supportive. I will definitely press forward to give clear, specific, and actionable feedback to others and gladly solicit that feedback for myself.
