Feedback

The bit I hate most about events is when you ask for feedback. No, that’s not right, it’s when the feedback comes back. 

Yes, I know you have to ask for it and it is essential to learn from other people’s experience and that there is only one way to find out and that is by asking them but I always feel I am poking a stick in a hornet’s nest. What do you do if people say bad things? What if they all hated it? How am I going to get over it?

Sometimes you just have to put on your big-boy pants and go for it. If people did truly detest an event then you might as well find out to avoid doing the same thing in future. And if they loved it? Well, more of the same please.

It’s not just me though, a lot of people have the same trepidation, indeed I have heard talk of renaming it to feedforward, as if this will be somehow kinder and more positive. 

My friend Mike once said to me that it is just feedback. It is only people’s opinions and it is up to you to agree with them or not, to do something with it or not. I have come to the conclusion that the only people who really give feedback are those that love it or hate it. Many in between just don’t bother and anyway, opinion is cheap.

I held my nose then and gritted my teeth before opening the latest feedback. I shouldn’t have worried as it was all positive with only the very odd negative comment (it really was an odd one). I can relax now as the response reflected my own feelings about the event. It looks like it’s more of the same then.

That is until the next feedback form comes in!