On Feedback

MAIN POINTS
• Feedback is valuable, especially frank and candid assessments of your work
• Accept feedback graciously, act on it thoughtfully
• Seeking feedback is a mark of professionalism, not inexperience

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Everyone hopes their performances will go well, but alas, hope is not a strategy. Optimism is not a plan. Professionals recognize concrete and proactive actions increase the likelihood of success, and they count feedback among these. Whether it comes from a teacher, a coach, or simply someone whose opinion they trust, feedback helps those who takes their music seriously ensure the success of their performances.

Examples abound. A couple of weeks ago cellist Yo-Yo Ma and kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor workshopped, rehearsed, and performed Kalhor’s new concerto, Venus in the Mirror, in a residency hosted by the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society. The project provided an opportunity to perform the concerto and obtain feedback in a comparatively low-stakes setting. It was a test drive before the official premiere next year at the Elbphilharmonie. These are the concrete and proactive actions that ensure success.

Apply these same principles to your speaking and writing. Ask a colleague to review your bio before you post it on your website or submit it for publication in a concert program. Ask someone you trust to listen to your on-stage speech before delivering it to an audience.

WHY BOTHER WITH FEEDBACK?
Error detection and quality control are obvious reasons to seek feedback. Alongside practice and rehearsal, soliciting feedback is a preparatory effort that reduces the likelihood of suffering an embarrassing moment in public or leaving out something important. There are other benefits, too.

Coherence – Feedback helps you be certain what you write and say is clear and focused. By pinpointing areas that may be confusing or ambiguous, feedback allows you to refine your message, structure your arguments more logically, and eliminate unnecessary jargon or redundant information. 

Feedback confirms your audience understands you.

Resonance – Feedback helps you strike the right tone, providing insights into how your words are perceived and enabling you to adjust your language to match the occasion. Feedback can help you navigate the fine line between modesty and arrogance in a bio, for example, or identify when your on-stage speech may be too casual or vague or, conversely, too stiff or not sufficiently engaging.

Feedback ensures you resonate with your audience. 

Perspective – Feedback helps you see through the eyes of your audience. It offers viewpoints you may not have considered, reveals blind spots you might have overlooked, furnishes insights into how audiences might interpret your work, and over time, you’ll gain a better and broader sense of how others react.

Feedback provides a glimpse of how others perceive you.

Progress – Feedback helps you work more efficiently. It allows you to find and address potential improvements more quickly, identifying areas that need clarification, reorganization, or enhancement, and accelerating your progress. You save time and energy, and the quality of your final product improves. Of course, it’s important to reciprocate, either by giving feedback in return or paying it forward.

Feedback streamlines your work.

SOURCES OF FEEDBACK
Experts – Feedback from individuals with a deep understanding and up-to-date information about your subject matter establishes credibility. Additionally, those familiar with the format and expectations of, say, an on-stage speech or a program note can confirm you’re following appropriate conventions and professional standards.

Colleagues – Those who know you in a professional context can provide personalized feedback. They know your professional and artistic goals. They know how you work. They know how you express yourself. These individuals are well-positioned to be supportive, encouraging, and motivate you to do your best.

Friends and family – Feedback from family and friends is useful as constructive criticism offered by those interested mainly in your success and well-being. Often, friends and family can also offer perspectives of a non-specialist, helping make certain your material is clear and engaging for a broad audience.

For important occasions it may be worthwhile to seek feedback from all these perspectives.

WHAT TO REQUEST
To get the most meaningful responses, consider several approaches when asking for feedback.

Targeted questions – Ask specific questions about clarity, structure, style, tone, or whether the material is likely to be interesting to the intended audience. For example, “Is the opening effective?” Or “Do you understand the section about the second movement?” In this way, you direct the attention of the individual providing feedback and focus their efforts on a specific part of your work.

Open-ended invitation – Alternatively, offer an open-ended invitation for feedback: “What works well? What could be stronger?” In this way, by minimizing your own influence, the individual providing feedback is able to focus on areas that attract their attention, which has the added benefit of telling you something about the potential response of your audience.

Proofreading and leading questions – Treat feedback as a limited resource. Ask for it when you need it, and focus on substantive improvements. Specifically, avoid asking for feedback on what you might easily check and correct yourself – spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and basic facts and figures – as well as things for which license is permissible, such as comma placement or word choice. Avoid asking leading questions, which are those designed to generate a desired response. These aren’t as useful as frank and candid assessment of your material.

TYPES OF FEEDBACK
Thoughtful and constructive criticism is tremendously valuable. Even if it isn’t always what you hope to hear, it will improve and strengthen your material and your skills. Treat those who provide such feedback as your trusted critics. Return to them often and respect what they tell you. Appreciate the significance of those moments when they tell you something is good, too, because as you know, these individuals are unlikely to jeopardize your best interests simply to make you feel good for a moment or two.

Not all feedback is equally beneficial though. In some cases, you’ll receive well intentioned but unhelpful comments: “It looks great” or “That sounds wonderful.” It’s nice to hear others say pleasant things about you, but if improvement is your goal, comments of this sort are not particularly useful. You may also occasionally receive unnecessarily blunt remarks. These, too, may be well intentioned, but if their emotional impact reduces your receptiveness to feedback, comments of this sort are less helpful as a result.

RESPONDING TO FEEDBACK
Regardless of what feedback you receive and how it’s delivered, accept it graciously: “Thank you.” “I appreciate this.” “I’ll take all this on board.” Receiving criticism is an essential part of honing your skills and refining your craft. In those moments you encounter something disagreeable, recognize that comments on your work are not a commentary on you, and try to respond rather than react. A considered and deliberate response is generally preferable to an immediate and impulsive one.

ACKNOWLEDGE – BUT DON’T ACT ON – ALL FEEDBACK
Feedback is an opportunity to reflect on your material, but you aren’t obligated to accept every suggestion. Even if you don’t accept a recommendation, you gain the confidence of knowing you’ve been thoughtful and deliberate by considering it, weighing its potential gains and losses, and coming to an informed decision about whether to incorporate it or disregard it. Ultimately, conducting a systematic review of your work is at least as useful as any specific recommendation or suggestion.

Keep in mind, too, you will never see yourself the way others see you – perception differs from self-perception – so be especially attentive to similar suggestions from multiple sources. As consultant Jack Rosenblum puts it, “If one person tells you you’re a horse, they are crazy. If three people tell you you’re a horse, there’s conspiracy afoot. If ten people tell you you’re a horse, it’s time to buy a saddle.”

Finally, a brief word on rejecting feedback. Rejecting feedback is fine, though it may be worthwhile to articulate why you’re doing so. Maybe a suggestion doesn’t align with your broader goals or maybe it doesn’t ”feel right“ in a specific circumstance. These are acceptable reasons. Be cautious, though, about rejecting feedback as a defense mechanism. It’s counterproductive to discard a good suggestion, because you’ve laden it with undue emotional weight.

FEEDBACK ON (ALMOST) EVERYTHING
Early on, you’ll be well served to get feedback on everything. As you become increasingly familiar with the responses your material elicits, you can reduce the regularity with which you seek feedback. However, anytime you’re working on something new or especially important – a new role, an on-stage speech at a prestigious venue, or a concerto with Yo-Yo Ma – you’ll be well served to return to the strategies and suggestions above. The mark of a professional isn’t someone who no longer needs feedback, but someone who seeks it as necessary and leverages it to achieve their professional and artistic goals.