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I’m accustomed to receiving feedback. It’s been a part of my professional life since 2008 and over time I think I can digest (most of) it fairly well without heartburn. Call it experience or practice, it’s a kind of a necessary evil or regrettable necessity that has in fact improved what I do and the way I do it. So, thank you whoever for the kindness that you shared in the choice of your words.

But of course, there are those remarks that thankfully come few and far in between which find a way to miss the mind and hit the heart and cause a bit more than heartburn. Some kind of painful churn. Stuff that you would smile through with a quip about being grateful for their attention and/or time.

My Observations:

1. The no-one-asked-for-it, but-here-it-is (NOAFI-BHIIS) model of managing complex workflows added a touch of unwanted humanity. Thankfully months of machine learning meeting my years of experience in the professional world allowed me to be open-minded to yet another set of unsolicited feedback. In that way, the AI was being very human.
2. Pleasantries before touching upon the ‘areas of improvement’ also reminded me of some of the most thought-damaging feedback I’ve received from the senior folks I’ve had the opportunity to work with. Points for keeping it real.
3. While I have personally been guilty of this in the past, using bullet points or numbering to (clearly) state your inputs stinks of ‘Premature Surrealism’ because (real) human beings are too messed up to be so clear. It’s a turn-off and a clear giveaway!
4. Corporate Motivation sign-off, while even in the most human form tends to send the most talented yet underpaid personnel into a fit of subdued rage. I prefer the feeling of conversing with a bot instead

I’ve visualized the above data in a simple manner so that it can be easier to grasp:

Hope this has been illuminating 🙂

You can find the original article that inspired this one here.