One of the most dangerous requests: "Give me honest feedback."

“Feedback is a gift” - Craig Brown

Once upon a time, in the early part of their careers, two rookies from a semiconductor supplier were involved in a major annual review with one of their company's largest customers. 

The head of the customer crew that had descended upon their facility was very impressed with the presentation that these rookies had given in the morning, and invited them to join him for lunch.  During this short break, they immediately established a good level of rapport and trust.

At the end of the day, back in the conference room, the customers wrapped-up as usual with feedback about their supplier’s performance.  Unusually, this time, the head of the customer crew asked the rookies directly, "Please give us honest feedback about how we are doing?"

This was a surprise for these rookies, who were momentarily taken aback.  However, since they were impressed by the humility and commitment to improvement that the customer was demonstrating, the rookies enthusiastically started delivering "Honest Feedback" about their customer.

As this feedback progressed, one of the rookies noticed that the other seven members (managers, engineers, a quality guy and some buyers) of the customer crew were constantly interrupting and explaining that things had to be that way because of the nature of their business and elegance of their technology. Also the faces of those magnificent seven seemed to be getting pinker and pinker. The rookies couldn’t figure out whether their faces were flushing with joy, or with something else.

Two days later, the rookies were summoned into their Boss’ Boss office. Their own boss was also present; and both those gentlemen’s faces looked pink and red, just like the faces of the seven customer folks two days earlier.  The big boss said that he had to field several calls from upset customer people. "What did you do?"

The rookies said, "The customer V.P. asked for honest feedback. So we gave him many improvement ideas and told him what other companies did better."

The bosses, faces still red, could not contain the laughter; even though it seemed that they really did not want to do that. The big boss said, "Honest, but not that honest!" Then he said (kind of admiringly), "Get the hell out of here."

Upon hearing about the episode, some senior employees were convinced that there would soon be a going-away party for the rookies.

Sequel: 
A week later, the rookies were again summoned in to the big boss’s office. The customer V.P. had sent two boxes for the rookies. Each box contained one tie pin representing his company’s products; one was a model of fighter jet F15 and the other was a model of the fighter jet F18. I think one of the rookies may still have the tie pin in a safe deposit box.

Reflection:
A feedback is a Gift. And that "Gift" deserves a gift for the person who gives you that "Gift."

Comments

[Andres]

Well I can guess the customer was McDonnel Douglas. Seems that it must be a long time ago since MD doesnot exist anymore as a separate company.

Good Story.

[Henry]

Often times, when people ask for feedback, they are not prepared to listen to criticisms. As a human being, you always wanted to hear praises in a feedback and I am of no exception. It was fortunate for the "rookies" that the company's customer understood that they were the one who asked for feedback and the "rookies" were behaving like engineers.

Having said that, this is also a perfect example of why for all the so called "general education" that the engineering major requirs, I'd gladly trade all that away for a class on how to deal with people. If I were the boss of those "rookies", before I kick 'em out of my office, I'd send each one of them with a copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dail Carnegies.

Before reading that book, when people ask me for feedback, I'd behave exactly like an engineer always pointing out problems (read criticisms). However, after reading the book, it tought me a very important lesson that you should never criticize, condemn or complain. Even though the rookies in this story had good intention, but to the customer when they heard the feedback, it was the same as criticism. Naturally their customer became defensive and constantly had to justify to the "rookies" of the choices that they made. This of course resulted in getting everyone lots of unwatned attention.

If I was one of those rookies, I'd start out with what was done right. This demostrate that I was listening to the presentation. I would then point out and ask if it would be more effective if they would also implement some of the design choices that their competitors are doing because it generated good feedback. While doing so may not win me any of those cool neck tie pins, but I would not have to deal with unwanted attention afterwards and maybe make some friends/bridges with the customer in the process.