#Feedback Quotes

“Fear, when your friends say to you what you have done well, and say it through; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and half-dislike, and must suspend their judgement for years to come, you may begin to hope.”

“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

“Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.”

“The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.”

“Best masters for the young writer and speaker are the fault- finding brothers and sisters at home who will not spare him, but willpick and cavil, and tell the odious truth.”

“Censure is often useful, praise is often deceitful.”

“We hear the words we have spoken, feel our own blow as we give it, or read in the bystander's eyes the success or failure of our conduct.”

“We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.”

“The truth of the matter is that there's nothing you can't accomplish if: (1) You clearly decide what it is that you're absolutely committed to achieving, (2) You're willing to take massive action, (3) You notice what's working or not, and (4) You continue to change your approach until you achieve what you want, using whatever life gives you along the way.”

“Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”

“Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you're at the top of the chain, sometimes people won't give you honest feedback because they're afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources.”

“In order to learn how to do something well, you have to fail sometimes. In order to fail, there has to be a measurement system. And that's the problem with most philanthropy - there's no measurement system. You give somebody some money to do something and most of the time you can really never measure whether you failed or succeeded in your judgment of that person or his ideas or their implementation.”

“My preference is live performance, because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that.”

“Once a year ask the boss, "What do I or my people do that helps you to do your job?" and "What do I or my people do that hampers you?"”

“Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.”

“Use feedback analysis to identify your strengths. Then go to work on improving your strengths. Identify and eliminate bad habits that hinder the full development of your strengths. Figure out what you should do and do it. Finally, decide what you should not do.”

“I like a leader who can, while pointing out a mistake, bring up the good things the other person has done. If you do that, then the person sees that you have a complete picture of him. There is nobody more dangerous than one who has been humiliated, even when you humiliate him rightly.”

“Seek the counsel of men who will tell you the truth about yourself, even if it hurts you to hear it. Mere commendation will not bring the improvement you need.”

“I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them.”

“When an audience does not complain, it is a compliment, and when it does, it is a compliment, too, if unaccompanied by violence.”

“Nothing is more apt to deceive us than our own judgment of our work. We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends.”

“The correctness of any of our policies has always to be tested and is always being tested by the masses themselves. We ourselves constantly examine our own decisions and policies. We correct our mistakes whenever we find them. We draw conclusions from all positive and negative experiences and apply those conclusions as widely as possible. In these ways relations between the Communist party and the masses of the people are constantly being improved.”

“If on your own or by the criticism of others you discover error in your work, correct it then and there; otherwise in exposing your work to the public, you will expose your error also.”

“Sometimes you're not even sure which of your stories were failures. There are things I've written that I thought were complete catastrophes when I finished with them that have gone on to generate some of my most positive feedback.”

“When you are influential and highly respected, people tend to tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. They are seeking your approval, or they flatter you. Unfortunately, this creates a gap between what you hear and reality. If you find yourself in that situation, you will need to work extra hard to get the people close to you to speak honestly into your life. And you will have to become highly intentional in observing and listening.”

“A good leader encourages followers to tell him what he needs to know, not what he wants to hear.”

“Praise them for what they do well, both privately and publicly.”

“I can bear to hear of imputed or real errors. The man who wishes to stand well in the opinion of others must do this; because he is thereby enabled to correct his faults, or remove prejudices which are imbibed against him.”

“Criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.”

“I think you should always be seeking negative feedback.”

“Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of what you're doing is as valuable as gold”

“I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”

“I think that's an important thing to do, to really pay attention to negative feedback, and solicit it, particularly from friends. This may sound like simple advice, but hardly anyone does that, and it's incredibly helpful.”

“I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better.”

“Actively seek out and listen carefully to negative feedback.”

“Does the logic connect? What are the range of probably outcomes? You want to figure out what those probabilities are and ideally be the House. It's fine to gamble, as long as you're the House. Also, listen to critical feedback, particularly from friends. Generally they will be thinking it but they won't tell you.”

“The flatter the corporate hierarchy, the more likely it is that employees will communicate bad news and act upon it.”

“We win because we hire the smartest people. We improve our products based on feedback, until they're the best. We have retreats each year where we think about where the world is heading.”

“Once you embrace unpleasant news, not as a negative but as evidence of a need for change, you aren't defeated by it. You're learning from it.”

“If you're smart, you often want a feedback loop so you know if what you've done is... is right.”

“Until recently, over 98 percent of teachers just got one word of feedback: Satisfactory. If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was 'satisfactory,' I would have no hope of ever getting better.”

“One thing I've always loved about the culture at Microsoft is there is nobody who is tougher on us, in terms of what we need to learn and do better, than the people in the company itself. You can walk down these halls, and they'll tell you, 'We need to do usability better, push this or that frontier.'”

“Strategically, a major function of the CEO is to look for bad news and encourage the organization to respond to it. Employees must be encouraged to share bad news as much as good news.”

“Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement.”

“If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was 'satisfactory,' I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?”

“Sometimes, I think my most important job as a CEO is to listen for bad news. If you don't act on it, your people will eventually stop bringing bad news to your attention and that is the beginning of the end.”