‘Keep pushing’. It’s a pretty cliché piece of feedback that’s used a lot.
I hate it.
It’s not guidance, it’s not helpful, it’s basically just means ‘go do some more’.
Some more what?
I had an old boss who during a review would, in silence, split all the ideas into two piles. Then hand you one pile and say ‘go do some more like that’.
The problem was until that point I had no idea which pile was good and which was bad.
There’d be ideas I liked placed seemingly randomly in either. With no discussion of how the decision had been made, why an idea was working or why it wasn’t. That’s not creative direction.
Jobs became paper filling exercises until something stuck. Burning hours and motivation.
It felt like I was trapped in a CIA-style mind-bending psychological experiment.
There was certainly no chance to learn how to do better creative while questioning my sanity.
When you’re reviewing work you should do everything you can to clearly explain decisions, add to and improve the work. Including giving the process the time it deserves. You need to help find the right answer on that job but also train as you go, making the next job even better too. Less pretentious proclaiming and more conversation.
When you’re working on ideas you should expect clear direction, advice and help. To work well that needs to be two-way, so ask questions to understand decisions. Importantly, stay open to comments. It’s easy to get defensive when someone is unpicking and destroying your favourite ideas but you might be too close to see a problem yourself.
It’s a much better process and much easier to get to great when we’re all talking it through properly.
And it’s a lot less psychosis-inducing.
