Seth Godin is an Entrepreneur, best-selling Author, and Speaker. In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, he has written 21 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It's Your Turn (And It's Always Your Turn). His book, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in countries around the world
Check him out here.
Seth explains in his blog:
“Do you want to know what I think? “The best answer might be, “no.”
Seth offers us three reasons why we might reject feedback offered to us:
Because this person is not very good at offering useful feedback.
Because you didn’t create this product or service or performance to please this person. They’re not the customer.
Because you’re not going to revise this any time soon. The movie is made, and specific feedback isn’t going to get the movie remade.
He explains, ‘Just because criticism is on offer doesn’t mean you have to seek it out or even listen to it’.
An example where I gave myself permission to reject feedback:
I recently delivered a Leadership Workshop and at the end of the day, handed participants PAPER evaluations to complete. One participant offered me some feedback, ‘The evaluations should be online to save time. I don’t want to write feedback now, I want time to reflect. It would be so much quicker for you to collate the information electronically. Why don’t you just use Survey Monkey?’
I’m sure he meant well. I could have explained to him that I have experimented with asking participants to complete online evaluations after workshops. I could have explained that on average, the response rate is 5% (yes even with three follow-up emails asking people to complete the survey). I could have explained that I stopped trying that approach, because the response rate when I ask participants to use paper and pen in the room, is 95%.
But I didn’t. I politely said, ‘Thanks for that’, and kept collecting the handwritten evaluations.