How to Give Feedback so the Other Person Hears Both the Positive and the Negative

by Ann Abbott

Fridays are "Consulting Workshop" days in my Business Spanish class.

(Reminder: my Business Spanish students are doing the social media marketing on Facebook for La Línea. There have been challenges, mostly because I was strapped for time to do the careful, intense editing that the posts need before being published. I´ll write about that another day.)

I had planned to teach them about preparing original images instead of always using things they find online. I was going to show them how to do images using PowerPoint (like the one above), PicMonkey and Canva.

Instead, I realized that I needed to use that time for editing: for them to edit each other!

First of all, I knew that if we didn´t use today´s class time for editing, I might not find the time after class. That would put us behind on posting again.

Secondly, I wanted them to go through the experience of looking at a post with ¨fresh¨ eyes. To see a post for the first time and analyze your reaction to it. Were you confused by something? Did a typo stick out like a sore thumb to you? Did you feel like the written text and the image didn´t go together? Did you see a chance to include some other relevant information? If the post told you to send a message, did it also tell you how to send that message?

It´s so hard to edit our own work. It´s all perfectly clear in our heads, so we don´t see what is missing from the writing.

So, each team had to analyze another team´s posts (unpublished, but shared in our course wiki) and give them feedback.

As I heard them give feedback, I heard things like (in Spanish), ¨Your post is really good, but...¨ ¨I like the picture, but...¨

At the end of the feedback sessions I told them what I had heard and suggested that they say this instead:

• ¨Your post is really good, and I think you should add La Línea´s phone number.¨
• ¨I like the picture, and I think a picture with people in it would convey your message even more strongly.¨
• ¨Your message is very compelling, and there are some grammar mistakes in Spanish that need to be corrected.

When you use the word ¨but,¨ it often feels like it cancels out what you just previously said. It cancels out the good stuff!

If you use the word ¨and,¨ you are simply offering additional information to the positive information you just gave.

This is very valuable! Whether your talking to your boyfriend-girlfriend, your employees, your potential client, your mother, your students, whomever. 

And it´s very simple! Just change one word. Just use and instead of but. In Spanish, use y (thus, the ¨y¨ in the photo at the top) instead of pero.