On direct feedback 🥪

Feedback is best served hot, and it's better not to serve it as a 💩 sandwich.

Occasionally, I'm called out as a rude person and accused of hurting people by telling them things they don't want to hear. And I'm 98.3% okay with that.

My Eastern European approach can be a bit intense at times, but my intentions are always good.

Why? Because I hate serving "shit sandwiches" to people. Believe me, I've served enough of them. You feel good about them at the moment, and the person receiving it feels great too—until things go wrong. Then the real drama begins. No one wants the real drama.

In coding, we have the concept of code reviews. For those not mentally prepared, this process can seem humiliating at first. However, the reviewer is trying to find all possible mistakes and improvements in your work for the greater good. As a contributor, you learn quickly in such an environment. I think we need this resilience in every business unit. Recent tweets reminded me of that.

My goal as an executive is to push you to grow and improve. When the time comes, you'll also hear praises from me (And don't forget this part, or else you'll truly seem like a nasty one❗), but you'll never receive a message like this:

"You are doing awesome! But... you did poorly here... but other than that, you are amazing!"

Every time I try to be a "nice person," it ends up hurting everyone. I never want to return to that.

I'm here to help you improve your craft, not to make you feel comfortable.