Personal essays
Start with something nice
Once it’s theirs
This weekend I baked three loaves of deli rye bread using a rye starter I’ve been growing.
They came out great.
Earlier in the week I’d done a test run but lost track of time and the loaves overproofed and collapsed a bit in the oven.
These came out perfectly.
I took one loaf to my mother-in-law, one to my mom, and I’ve been eating corned beef sandwiches for lunch from slices of the third one.
My mother asked me how it should be stored.
That’s a great question. I have a bread box at home and before that I used to wrap it in plastic wrap.
These days, I told her, I slice the bread and then put the loaf sliced side down on the counter and it stays fresh. It will dry out and stale over time, but for whole grained and sourdough breads, this strategy works just fine.
I’m going over to my mother-in-law’s again tomorrow so I told her I would bake more bread.
“No need,” she told me, “I’ll just put it in the fridge to keep it fresh.”
I told her it would do better on the counter top and she told me no it would be better in the fridge.
Maggie gave me a look that told me to drop it and said later, “you gave it to her. It’s hers. Let her do what she wants with it.”
In review
The actual answer is more complicated. Keeping the bread cool prevents or at least slows mold from growing on the bread - but it will stale much more quickly.
I can’t remember the last time I kept bread around long enough that it molded - so I’m more concerned with it staling.
A couple of the reviewers on my most recent book gave me amazing feedback coupled with suggestions that helped the book tremendously. Their feedback was of the “It’s complicated but here’s why I think you might want to do this” nature.
The simple feedback from them and other reviewers also made the book better: typos or non-agreement or grammar errors. Some noted that the code used one name but I referred to it with a different name.
All of this feedback helped but I wanted to know did they like the book and was it explaining these concepts clearly.
I explicitly asked “did you like this” about different things in the book because sometimes people provide feedback by just telling you about the things that are wrong.
Getting comments
Since shipping my book I’ve been working on a music app for the iPhone that turns Apple playlists and charts into radio stations where some songs play more often than others.
“But Daniel,” you say - and before you finish your thought I reply, yes, I was working on this app a year ago but changes that Apple introduced broke the app and I just picked it up again recently.
My plan is to release it some time next week - so I’ll say more about it in next week’s essay.
But a group of testers has been experimenting with the app.
Now you should know that there’s a lot of work that users can’t and won’t see in this app to make sure it plays the right music in the right order. Behind the scenes it checks to see if the playlist or chart has been updated.
When I get feedback from one of my testers I expect to hear about something they would like to see change or improve.
When someone asks me to read something or try a new app or whatever - I always say “yes” if I can.
Generally, I like what they’ve shown me or at least like something about it and so the first thing I can do is tell them what I liked about it.
It’s genuine feedback.
“Oh that’s a cool idea.”
“I like how you explained that.”
There’s always something I really like about what they’ve given me.
Well - not always. Almost always.
Feedback sandwiches
When I was a young teacher they told me to wrap my criticism of a student in what we called a shit sandwich.
Place the negative part in between two slices of positive comments.
I’m not advocating that.
This leads to what Johanna Rothman referred to in a recent post as “Watermelon status” where like a watermelon everything looks great from the outside with tests returning green while it is red on the inside.
Sandwiching the critical feedback between two slices of feelgood comments either leads to the recipient discarding the bread and only seeing the critique inside or to them not noticing the critique because they began and ended with great comments.
What I’m saying is, if someone put in the work to produce a book or an app or some other product of their creativity, there must be something you can start with that indicates your appreciation.
Don’t say you like something you don’t like - don’t say something is deep just because you don’t understand it.
You can raise valid points - just realize how the person hearing it is going to feel.
I start with something I generally believe is true and only provide the feedback if they ask for it. I guess that’s an open-faced shit sandwich.
Just a slice of bread
As feedback givers we sometimes miss two parts of that advice. Part one is that we should start with something nice.
This helps the recipient. If the thing you like is something the creator doesn’t care about or you don’t like anything at all, then maybe this thing isn’t for you and maybe it doesn’t matter to the creator what you do or don’t like.
If you do understand and appreciate the product, then your feedback might be welcome and they might invite you to share more. That’s the second part that many people - including me - sometimes miss.
Don’t provide the feedback until you’re invited to do so.
So step one is to say something nice. My “then what” is to see if they want feedback and what sort of feedback they want.
They might not want detailed feedback.
I always ask before offering feedback, but last week I learned that you need to ask in such a way that doesn’t make the person feel obligated to hear what you have to say.
A friend asked me to read something.
He didn’t ask me for feedback. I really liked what he had written and I told him so.
But I didn’t leave it at that. I asked if he wanted notes. That was wrong.
So step two is to leave things alone until the other person asks if I have any feedback.
If they never ask, there is no step three.
“But Daniel,” you say, “then it’s just a slice of bread.”
It is. Take the rest of the loaf and place it sliced side down on the counter.
They may give you an opportunity sometime later. If the bread hasn’t staled, cut off another slice of a kind observation and see if this time they invite you to spread some feedback on top.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 156. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe