My ten-year-old nephew, Joaquin, is dauntless.
He will try any new toy, game, sport, or instrument. He’s on the swim team, plays violin in an orchestra, loves basketball, inhales video games, and is learning archery, snowboarding, and surfing.
And he is perseverant in improving his skills in each new activity.
Recently he was eager to experience Guitar Hero, a video game in which players strum a guitar-shaped game controller and match notes that scroll on the screen in time to the music in order to score points and keep the virtual audience delighted (not disappointed).
After playing a while, Joaquin turned with tears in his eyes and said, “Every time I mess up, my band boos me.”
While he was prepared to make mistakes, he wasn’t prepared to be boo-ed as he learned the game.
None of us are! When we are in the process of learning and growing, getting boo-ed can quickly crush our oomph.
And yet people regularly boo each other, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes in jest:
- discouraging or dissuading statements (“No. That won’t work.”)
- judging, mocking, ridiculing, or deprecating
- scoring anonymous surveys unreasonably low
- submitting unkind comments or reviews online
- leaving bad tips
Wait! Don’t we need to provide people with feedback to help them learn? Absolutely!
But unkind comments, unreasonably low scores, and bad tips are rarely accompanied by recommendations for improving. They merely serve to dignify the boo-er.
To serve another person’s success in learning, our responses, comments, and scores need to contribute to, not contaminate, the process.
Being a contribution to people as they learn and grow means our feedback must make them feel superior, not us.
Less boos, more woo-hoo’s.
