In conversation, someone said to me, “All feedback is a gift.”
I couldn’t disagree more.
Feedback, at its most basic nature, is someone else giving you their opinion on a thing with the intention of helping you.
However, framed in the manner of an opinion, no matter the intention, I find the framing of the initial statement to be ludicrous.
“All opinions are a gift.” How laughable.
Intention, however, does matter. Individuals with positive intentions toward you are valuable, even if their ideas are not, this time around.
Many opinions are misinformed. Many lack knowledge of the full system. Many are shrouded in personal stories and past experiences and battle scars.
Informed, valuable opinions are worth their weight in gold. Someone who routinely has an informed, valuable opinion about a consistent topic is considered a “mentor” or “expert.”
Feedback from mentors, experts, those with relevant past experiences, and those who have been where you are, oftentimes, I find to be invaluable. I’ve never had better shortcuts in the path to get where I am today than brilliant feedback.
On the other hand, I have never wasted more time than when I took someone’s feedback as gospel, and then discovered that the feedback was either misinformed or only applied to that one person, client, or account.
So, not all feedback is a gift, just like not all opinions are a gift.
Great feedback can be nothing short of life-changing, but that is rare.
Good feedback can lend itself to a marginal improvement.
But not all feedback is a gift. Some is merely a distraction.
Thanks to Miranda Wagner, Shannon Waller, and Terise Ryan for reading drafts of this essay.
Evan Ryan 