Feedback

“A question's good if it's specific, if it solicits rationale, and it's not biased. You don't want to start a question with, here's what I think because people have this tendency to want to please you or to agree with you.”

“No one wants to make anybody upset, but through that upset on the other side of that, can often be a whole new possibility and a whole new revelation, and actually a lot of joy and freedom. I think that we forget about all the other possibilities that come out of difficult conversations and we just land on these really uncomfortable parts.”

“I care so much about you and I'm giving you this feedback because I want you to be successful. You do all of that setup explicitly - you actually say that and show it in your body language. That makes the other person much more receptive to hearing whatever you have to say.”

“Open mics are the real live experiments. You put something out there, you get very clear micro feedback from users, and then you get tough feedback sometimes. And I think as product builders, that's actually one of the great skills to have, which is you sometimes launch stuff that have a fantastic vision, but the first version is not quite there.”

“Mark is somebody who is maybe the strongest willpower of a person I've ever met. You'll give him feedback, he'll listen. He'll most often tell you that you're wrong, why you're wrong. What will happen is over the course of the next week or two, you'll just see shifts. The information gets to him, and at night he re-compiles the whole world with all that information and comes back.”

“In any exchange between two people, there are three realities. There is my intent, how I see the world, my background, my history. There is what I do or say or don't do, verbal or nonverbal. And whatever happens on your end is reality number three, the impact of what I've said or done, how you see things, your background.”

“One of the challenges for a CEO is it feels good when you feel needed. To come into a room and point out the things that are wrong makes you feel good. If you don't have emotional intelligence, that process can really piss people off or demotivate people.”

“Self-awareness to build mutual awareness is actually the most fundamental thing you need to crack if you're going to succeed at company building or management. The more that you can seek feedback, seek to understand your motivators, your strengths, your blind spots, and expose it to others, you're going to be a much more effective company builder and manager.”