【英语生活】你介意提供反馈吗？

Some time ago I had lunch with the chief executive of a well-known company in the City of London. He told me that every time he goes to a dinner party, he turns to the guests either side of him and offers unsolicited feedback on the quality of their conversation during the meal. So, he might tell someone that while he'd enjoyed listening to their views on the Chilcot inquiry, they could have made more eye contact and asked him a few questions. Or that, although he was interested to hear about the choice of schools for their children, they could have kept it briefer or been a little less boastful.

When he told me this I was shocked. How vulgar, I thought. Yet every time I've been out to dinner and sat next to people who were not pulling their weight, I have thought about him and wished that I was brave enough to offer tips on how they could improve.

Last Monday night, I sat next to a senior banker at a large formal function. He was intelligent and had a nice smile, and I thought we were getting along rather well. When coffee had been dispatched, his wife came up to him and asked if he was ready to leave.

“I'm desperate to go,” he declared loudly.

Because I'd had rather more alcohol than was wise on a Monday night, I found myself telling him this was incredibly rude. That until that point I had enjoyed his company, but now the effect was spoilt.

This, I decided, was perfect feedback. It was spontaneous and heartfelt and specific, delivered in real time, eyeball to eyeball. Judging by the expression on his face, I'm pretty sure it hit home.

Earlier on that evening, I had given some rather less perfect feedback. I'd been getting ready to go out when a man appeared on the doorstep with a clipboard trying to raise money for a homeless charity. He was a bit pathetic and so I asked him in. Agonisingly slowly, he filled in the standing order forms and, when he was done, he fished out another set of much longer ones. Would I mind giving some feedback? So I ploughed through two pages of questions. How well informed did you feel about the charity? How polite was he? I ticked a few boxes more or less at random and sent him on his way.

This exercise destroyed any virtuous glow I might have felt and was utterly useless. The only relevant information about a fundraiser is whether he raises funds; and this particular man had just hit a – rather meagre – jackpot.

Feedback is a bad word, and it's a bad business. There is no longer any transaction or any business relationship that does not require feedback. I am endlessly invited to fill in forms to describe my feelings towards my employers, my children's headmaster, the board of the company where I am a non-executive director and towards the man who has just unblocked the drain.

Feedback forms are hopeless, because the wrong questions are asked at the wrong time to people who generally are in no frame of mind to answer them properly. And then they are filed away, the main action being that pie charts are drawn to depict the results.

Feedback matters because it is useful to discover what other people think. Unfortunately, there is no formulaic way of finding this out. The only way is to do it spontaneously.

The best people at giving spontaneous feedback are one's teenage children. Not all of their feedback is of obvious practical use: “You're a bitch” does not help you stop being one. But teenagers are invaluable when it comes to telling you your voice sounds insincere or that a new dress you've bought looks hideous. Whereas nothing has ever changed as a result of any box I've ticked on a form, thanks to teenage feedback I have given the dress away and try to sound more genuine.

The problem with adopting the teenage model of feedback at work is fear. We don't speak out because we are afraid, and often with reason. But a company in which people are afraid to speak their minds is not going to be helped by any feedback forms sent out by HR either.

The problem with adopting it at dinner parties is manners. Yet this is misguided. If you accept an invitation to dinner you are entering into a contract that says: I am being fed and in return I am going to try hard to be interesting and interested. To the extent to which people do not honour their contracts, they should be firmly told. To give such feedback is not rude or vulgar. It's a public service.

不久前，我与伦敦金融城某著名企业的首席执行官共进午餐。他告诉我，每次赴宴，他都会与邻座客人攀谈，并就他们在用餐期间的交谈质量主动提供反馈。他可能会跟人家这样说：虽然听他们阐述对齐尔考特调查事件的看法很愉快，但他们本可以进行更多的眼神接触，并提出一些问题；或者，虽然他有兴趣听他们说给自己的孩子选择什么学校，但他们本可以讲得再简短一些，或者不要那么炫耀。

听他这么说时，我感到很震惊。多么粗俗呀，我心里想。但每当我出席宴会、身边坐着不尽宾客本分的人时，我就会想到他，并希望自己有足够的勇气，跟旁边的人讲讲他们应该怎么做得更好。

上周一晚上，在一个盛大的正式宴会上，我坐在一位资深银行家旁边。他很聪明，笑容和蔼。我以为我们相处得很愉快。咖啡喝完时，他妻子走过来，问他准备走了吗。

“我巴不得走呢，”他大声说道。

由于当时我喝高了——在周一晚上喝那么多酒真是不明智——我听到自己对他说，他这么说粗鲁得让人难以置信。还说，在此之前，与他相处我很愉快，但现在这种印象全毁了。

我认为这是完美的反馈。它是自发、由衷、明确的；它是实时并且面对面进行的。从他脸上表情判断，我相当肯定，它击中了要害。

当晚早些时候，我还做过一次不那么完美的反馈。我已经做好了出发的准备，这时门口来了个人，拿着一个文件夹，想为一个无家可归者慈善组织募捐。他看上去有点可怜，于是我请他进门。他慢吞吞地填完了转账委托表，接着又掏出一份长长的表格，问我是否介意提供一些反馈。于是我绞尽脑汁回答了整整两页纸的问题：你觉得对这个慈善机构了解了多少？募捐人员是否礼貌？我胡乱地在一些答案上打了勾，然后把他打发走了。

这套问卷彻底摧毁了我原来可能因做了好事而产生的满足感，并且毫无用处。就一名募捐人员来说，唯一具有实质意义的是，他能否募到资金。而此人刚刚得到了一笔——相当微薄的——意外收获。

反馈是个糟糕的词语，也是件麻烦事。如今没有哪种交易或商业关系不需要反馈。我不停地被邀请填写各种表格，描述我对老板、孩子就读学校的校长、我担任非执行董事的公司董事会以及刚刚清理完下水道的工人的意见。

意见反馈表毫无意义，它们在错误的时间提出错误的问题，而人们一般也都没有心思好好地回答这些问题。接着它们便被存档，主要功能就是用于绘制饼状统计图表，以表现反馈结果。

反馈之所以重要，是因为可以利用它来发现别人的想法。遗憾的是，要发现人们的想法，没有一种统一的方法可以套用。唯一有用的是自发的反馈。

最擅长自发反馈的是你十几岁的孩子。他们的反馈并非都切实有用：说“你是个泼妇”并不会让你改掉脾气。但当他们告诉你，你的声音听起来很虚伪，或者你新买的衣服很难看时，这种反馈就非常宝贵。我在各种表格上打过的勾不曾改变任何事情，而由于孩子们的反馈，我把那件衣服送了人，还设法让自己听起来更加真诚。

不在工作中采用青少年的反馈模式，是因为我们有顾虑。我们不坦言相告，是因为我们在担心，并且这种担心往往都有理由。然而，如果一家公司里人人都不敢说出自己的想法，那么人事部发放的意见反馈表对公司也不会有任何助益。

不在宴会上采用青少年的反馈模式，是因为我们要保持礼貌。但这是被误导了。如果你接受了赴宴邀请，就是缔结了如下契约：我要去吃人家的，作为报答，我要努力让自己显得有趣，并表现得兴致勃勃。如果人们不尊重这项契约，就应当明确告诉他们。提供这样的反馈既不粗鲁，也不庸俗。这是公益行为。

译者/杨远