Why You Won’t Receive Honest Feedback

From David Kadavy’s Love Mondays Newsletter:

This is a paradox of intelligence: Smart people are too smart to tell you you’re dumb. They know they can’t change your mind, and they’re smart enough to save their energy.

You might think that’s not fair. They should tell you if they disagree. But they’ll only do that if you signal to them it’s worth the effort.

If you want to get honest feedback, you need to signal that giving feedback to you is not a waste of time.

That doesn’t mean that people will start giving you feedback just because you are humble enough to realize that you have something to learn. You’ll probably have to ask for it. But it will remove a big obstacle in the way.

It’s not a coincidence that wise people are open to change their minds.