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I'm reading a whole lot of frustrated comments here and totally get where the frustration is coming from. But in a different direction, I wanted to offer a thought for how to improve:

Rule #1: Always ask people if they want feedback before you give it. Do it for men, women and non-binary folks. If you can, give hints about the topic ("hey, would you like feedback about your skills alignment with the problem?").

I've always been amazed at how much better feedback is received by anyone when they've explicitly agreed to hear it.



As a counter-point, I've known people that would take this as condescending right off the bat, so YMMV.


Are they more receptive to feedback when you just launch straight into it? Or is there something different that you do to prime them to be receptive?


As in it doesn't get that far. I've literally seen men say "would you mind if I give you some feedback" and that was received as a condescending thing to ask someone.

This is of course anecdotal, so I'm not trying to paint anyone with a broad brush. Just wanted to point out that in my experience, asking if you can give feedback/advice/etc isn't always well-received. I can't imagine unsolicited feedback would've been any better received in those situations.


If people take this as condescending then maybe they aren't mature enough to be worth interacting with, though.


Feedback is usually an explicit and non optional step of the development process so this isn't ideal.




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