A customer says to the waiter, “Taste my soup.”
“Is it too hot? Too salty? Too cold?”
“Will you please just try the soup?”
“Fine. I’ll try the soup. Where’s the spoon?”
“Exactly.”
This corny joke indirectly captures something important for leaders.
Telling someone the answer and letting them arrive at it themselves has a markedly different impact.
In the joke, the waiter arrives at the problem themselves instead of being told.
In life, when people discover feedback rather than receive it, they become less defensive, incorporate the learning faster, and retain the feedback longer.
Self-discovered insights feel like your idea, not someone else’s judgment.
When team members give themselves their own feedback, they internalize the learning in a way they never would if it were given to them.
This internalization makes the feedback stick.
Perhaps the best way for a leader to help people discover feedback is to ask them to step outside their own perspective and simulate another person’s views.
Through targeted questions, leaders can guide team members to generate their own feedback, often experiencing an “aha” moment without ever offering a direct statement.
Projecting an audience and asking how they would view, respond, or make sense of issues creates the conditions for self-discovery.
Consider a handful of examples:
“If you were the reader, what would be your main takeaway here?”
“What conclusion do you think a leader would draw from that slide?”
“Would a novice know what this means?”
“How do you think the team will respond to your proposal? What will they think are the strengths and weaknesses of what you’re suggesting?”
“How might a junior team member become confused by this?”
“Walk me through how a customer will navigate the landing page.”
“What do you expect will happen when a user clicks this?”
The key is for leaders to find an audience that can serve as a foil for self-discovery. Most situations and issues have a natural audience.
Leaders who pose a targeted question directed at the audience engineer a potential moment of self-realization.
Self-discovery beats instruction, correction, and direct feedback nearly every time. When people generate their own feedback, it usually lands deeper, lasts longer, and leads to real change.
Do you guide people to discover feedback or always give it to them directly?
While many times, candid and direct feedback is the best call, self-discovery through audience projection is an essential option for good leaders.
Sometimes letting insights land on their own is the superior leadership choice.
